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W$t Mtoersfae ^Literature Series 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

A BIOGRAPHY 



BY 



WASHINGTON IRVING 

THE AUTHOR'S REVISED EDITION 

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 

WILLIS BOUGHTON, Ph.D. 

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, ERASMUS HALL 
HIGH SCHOOL, NEW YORK 




HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Boston : 4 Park Street ; New York : 85 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago : 378-388 Wabash Avenue 

®fre Ifttoerji&e J&re?p, Cambridge 






THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Receivec 

SEP 29 ?903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS Ci XXcNc ;; 

COPYJL , I 






Copyright, 1903 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



The text of this volume is used by permission of, and by 
arrangement with, Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sobs, the a«- 
thorized publishers of Irving's Works. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass, U.S. A. 
Electrotype*! and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction. 

I. Biographical Sketch of Irving v 

II. Irving's Goldsmith ™i 

III. Irving's Works ix 

Chronological Table xi 

Author's Preface xiii 

Oliver Goldsmith 1 



INTRODUCTION. 
I. Biographical Sketch op Irving. 

If one were to search for a biographer for Oliver Goldsmith, 
no fitter person could be found than Washington Irving. 
Irving's wandering nature, his relish for humor and for 
satire, his kindliness of heart and loneliness of life, his love 
for children, his sympathy for the unfortunate, — all render 
him capable of entering into the life of the homeless man 
whose character he so feelingly delineates. 

Washington Irving, the real pioneer of American litera- 
ture, was born of strict Scotch and English ancestry, in 
New York, April 3, 1783. As a little child, he was led 
by his nurse to General Washington, whose name he bore 
and whose life he was destined to write. His schooling was 
meagre, not from the lack of opportunity, but because study 
was irksome and repugnant to his tastes. He seems even 
to have refused the proffered college education of which his 
brothers availed themselves. Fond of the drama, he often 
neglected studies and sleep to delight himself in the plea- 
sures of the stage, and he read much, books of travel being 
his favorites. 

At the age of sixteen he entered on the study of law ; but 
while he succeeded in passing all requirements, the work was 
never congenial to him. The friendship he formed, how- 
ever, with the family of Josiah Hoffman, an eminent attor- 
ney in whose office he remained some time, was of a deep and 
life-long character. He was formally admitted to the bar 
after his return from a European tour ; but he seems never 
seriously to have entered on the practice of his profession, 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

though knowledge of law was of service to him in his sub- 
sequent diplomatic life. 

When seventeen years of age, he made his first voyage 
up the Hudson. The country, then new and wild, had a 
witching effect on his imagination, which bore fruit in later 
years in the charming stories he has left of the enchanting 
Hudson Kiver region. But he was frail and inclined to- 
ward pulmonary troubles ; so in 1804, when he was in his 
nineteenth year, his relatives decided to send him abroad 
for his health. He visited France, Italy, Sicily, and Eng- 
land, forming valuable acquaintances and filling his mind 
with the romance of Continental places. After two years 
spent in travel, with restored health he returned to New 
York to begin the career of a man of letters. 

Irving had written a series of essays for his brother 
Peter's paper, "The Morning Chronicle," before going 
abroad ; but his literary life may be said to begin with the 
publication, in connection with his brother and James K. 
Paulding, of a satirical periodical which they called " Sal- 
magundi." It was modelled after the " Spectator," and 
was at once popular and successful. After running through 
twenty numbers, it was discontinued because of a misunder- 
standing with the publishers. 

Then followed a period of indecision, clouded by an event 
that influenced his whole subsequent career. Miss Matilda 
Hoffman, the daughter of his law associate and the intended 
sharer of his life, died. He says, " This affliction tended 
to throw some clouds into my disposition which have ever 
since hung about it." He remained always true to this youth- 
ful ideal ; and though he was fond of the society of good 
women, and though his home was shared by many of his 
female relatives, he never married. 

His first important book, "Knickerbocker's History of 
New York," appeared in 1809. It was a kindly burlesque 
on the Dutch settlers of New York ; and though some of their 
descendants were inclined to take offence at this fun-pro- 



INTRODUCTION. vii 

voking, though in the main accurate, history, it became at 
once popular and raised Irving to the rank of literary men. 
For a few years, however, his industry was desultory. 
Though inclined toward literary work, he yielded to the 
allurements of society. He contributed to magazines and 
finally became the editor of the " Analectic Magazine." The 
War of 1812, just at its close, drew him into political life. 
Joining the staff of Governor Tompkins, he went through 
northern New York, enjoying the travel more than the mili- 
tary experience into which he was thrown. The war closed 
four months after he entered the service. 

In 1815 a sudden opportunity to travel was offered him. 
The following seventeen years were spent in England, France, 
and Spain. He made valuable acquaintances with such men 
as Byron, Scott, Campbell, Moore, Lamb, and Disraeli. 
He enjoyed the social life of the Old World, to which his 
growing literary reputation introduced him. And above 
all, he decided to devote his life uninterruptedly to literature. 
The " Sketch Book" was written in London and sent home, 
where it was published in 1819 and 1820. In 1829 he was 
made secretary of the American legation in London, and 
held the position for two years. This period of his life was 
fruitful in the storing of material for many delightful 
sketches and for some of his fascinating Spanish stories and 
histories. 

On returning to New York in 1832, he found himself the 
idol of the people. He was feted and was sought for all 
social and literary gatherings ; but he wearied of all this 
and longed for retirement and a home. Before settling 
down, however, he took another trip up the Hudson, then 
a journey into the broad West, making his travels memo- 
rable by his " Tour on the Prairies." 

The romantic and beautiful section on the Hudson, a few 
miles above New York, had always been fascinating to him, 
and there, near " Sleepy Hollow," he bought, in 1835, an 
old Dutch stone cottage, which he transformed, with love 



vin INTRODUCTION. 

and care, into a beautiful home-like place, at first called 
" Wolfert's Roost," afterward " Sunnyside," by which name 
it has ever since been known. 

In 1842 he was appointed minister to Spain. At Madrid 
he was busied in diplomatic work, often meeting royalty, 
and taking part with profound interest in the tragic scenes 
through which Spain was then passing. His pen was idle, 
though he travelled over the Continent whenever his health, 
which was very poor at the time, would allow. In the latter 
part of 1845 he resigned his official position and returned 
to his beloved Sunnyside. There he dwelt until the close 
of his life, surrounded by relatives and engaged in a re- 
vision of his complete works. His " Life of Washington " 
was finished a short time before his death, which occurred 
November 28, 1859. During nine of these last years, he 
received in royalties on his revised works more than 
$85,000. 

The closing years of Irving's life were serene and happy. 
In the midst of devoted relatives, honored as a man and as 
a writer, he enjoyed a well-earned peace. The man and 
his writings were one. He was genial, modest in the esti- 
mate of his powers, generous, pure, and lovable. Political 
life sought him, and almost any career would have opened 
to him. Yet he was not a politician but a literary man, 
not local in his interests but cosmopolitan ; he lived and 
wrote, not for his age alone, but for all admirers of what 
is best in literature. 

II. ' Irving's Goldsmith. 

The Life of Goldsmith was written when Irving was nearly 
seventy years of age. It bears the stamp of his finished 
style and mature judgment. It was the enlargement of a 
sketch made twenty-five years earlier. Various lives of 
Goldsmith had been written, but with the new and abun- 
dant material placed in his hands, Irving produced the one 
which has been most widely read. 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

A good biography, says Carlyle, ought to show the effect 
of society on the individual and of the individual on society. 
Irving has succeeded in writing such a biography of Gold- 
smith. The youth in rural Ireland, the student at the uni- 
versity, the wanderer on the Continent, the hack-writer of 
Grub Street, is shown under the moulding influence of a 
severe and often cruel world. Then, after a long struggle, 
the world recognized and rewarded Goldsmith. The sub- 
tle influence of his winning style, of his quiet manner and 
his sympathetic nature, was quietly shaping the thought of 
the time ; yet he held aloof from political wrangle and from 
party strife. All this Irving shows by illustration and en- 
forces by argument. 

In style there are elements common to both author and 
biographer. The works of both are marked by ease and 
grace, by tenderness and pathos, and by a mild irony. The 
American author was just the person to write the life of the 
brilliant, lovable Irishman. 

Irving, who was fully appreciated while he lived, suc- 
ceeded in gaining the acknowledgment of the world's in- 
debtedness to him; Goldsmith, who craved kind words, 
barely won the friendship of a world that is often tardy in 
recognizing merit. 

III. Irving's Works. 

1807. Salmagundi. 

1809. Knickerbocker's History of New York. 

1815-19. Contributions to the Analectic Magazine. 

1819. The Sketch Book. 

1822. Bracebridge Hall. 

1824. Tales of a Traveller. 

1824. American Essays (never printed). 

1828. Life of Columbus. 

1829. Conquest of Grenada. 

1831. Voyages of the Companions of Columbus. 

1832. The Alhambra. 



x INTRODUCTION. 

1835. Tour on the Prairies. 

1835. Crayon Miscellanies, containing Abbotsford and 

Newstead Abbey. 

1836. Legends of the Conquest of Spain. 
1836. Astoria. 

1849. Life of Goldsmith. 

1850. Mahomet and his Successors. 
1855. Wolfert's Roost. 

1855. Life of Washington. 

In the study of Irving's Goldsmith, the student will find 
the following books of assistance : — 

Besant's London in the Eighteenth Century. 

Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

Prior's Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith. 

Davidson's Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. 

Dobson's Life of Goldsmith. 

Irving's Life and Letters of Washington Irving. 

Warner's Washington Irving. 



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PREFACE 

In the course of a revised edition of my works I 
have come to a biographical sketch of Goldsmith, 
published several years since. It was written hastily, 
as introductory to a selection from his writings; and, 
though the facts contained in it were collected from 
various sources, I was chiefly indebted for them to 
the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior, 1 who had 
collected and collated the most minute particulars 
of the poet's history with unwearied research and 
scrupulous fidelity; but had rendered them, as I 
thought, in a form too cumbrous and overlaid with 
details and disquisitions, and matters uninteresting 
to the general reader. 

When I was about of late to revise my biographi- 
cal sketch, preparatory to republication, a volume 
was put into my hands, recently given to the public 
by Mr. John Forster, 2 of the Inner Temple, 3 who, 

1 James Prior, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries ; Mem- 
ber of the Royal Irish Academy ; author of the Life of Gold' 
smith, Life of Burke, etc., etc. 

2 (1812-1876.) An English barrister and man of letters; 
biographer of Goldsmith and Dickens. 

8 The London Temple was the lodge of the ancient religious 
order of the Knights Templars. Edward II. suppressed the 
order and gave the house to the Earl of Pembroke. After 
changing hands once or twice, it was, in 1346, leased to students 
of law. On the site of the ancient Temple now stand the two 



PREFACE 

In the course of a revised edition of my works I 
have come to a biographical sketch of Goldsmith, 
published several years since. It was written hastily, 
as introductory to a selection from his writings; and, 
though the facts contained in it were collected from 
various sources, I was chiefly indebted for them to 
the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior, 1 who had 
collected and collated the most minute particulars 
of the poet's history with unwearied research and 
scrupulous fidelity; but had rendered them, as I 
thought, in a form too cumbrous and overlaid with 
details and disquisitions, and matters uninteresting 
to the general reader. 

When I was about of late to revise my biographi- 
cal sketch, preparatory to republication, a volume 
was put into my hands, recently given to the public 
by Mr. John Forster, 2 of the Inner Temple, 3 who, 

1 James Prior, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries ; Mem- 
ber of the Royal Irish Academy ; author of the Life of Gold' 
smith, Life of Burke, etc., etc. 

2 (1812-1876.) An English barrister and man of letters ; 
biographer of Goldsmith and Dickens. 

8 The London Temple was the lodge of the ancient religious 
order of the Knights Templars. Edward II. suppressed the 
order and gave the house to the Earl of Pembroke. After 
changing hands once or twice, it was, in 1346, leased to students 
of law. On the site of the ancient Temple now stand the two 



xiv PREFACE. 

likewise availing himself of the labors of the indefati- 
gable Prior, and of a few new lights since evolved, 
has produced a biography of the poet, executed with 
a spirit, a feeling, a grace, and an eloquence that 
leave nothing to be desired. Indeed it would have 
been presumption in me to undertake the subject after 
it had been thus felicitously treated, did I not stand 
committed by my previous sketch. That sketch now 
appeared too meagre and insufficient to satisfy public 
demand; yet it had to take its place in the revised 
series of my works unless something more satisfactory 
could be substituted. Under these circumstances I 
have again taken up the subject, and gone into it with 
more fulness than formerly, omitting none of the facts 
which I considered illustrative of the life and charac- 
ter of the poet, and giving them in as graphic a style 
as I could command. Still, the hurried manner in 
which I have had to do this amidst the pressure of 
other claims on my attention, and with the press dog- 
ging at my heels, has prevented me from giving some 
parts of the subject the thorough handling I could 
have wished. Those who would like to see it treated 
still more at large, with the addition of critical dis- 
quisitions and the advantage of collateral facts, would 
do well to refer themselves to Mr. Prior's circumstan- 
tial volumes or to the elegant and discursive pages 
of Mr. Forster. 

Inns of Court, the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple, which 
are occupied by the societies of barristers. These societies have 
the right of " calling candidates to the degree of barristers." 



PREFACE. xv 

For my own part I can only regret my shortcom- 
ings in what to me is a labor of love; for it is a trib- 
ute of gratitude to the memory of an author whose 
writings were the delight of my childhood, and have 
been a source of enjoyment to me throughout life ; 
and to whom, of all others, I may address the beau- 
tiful apostrophe of Dante l to Virgil : 2 — 

" Tu se' lo mio maestro, e '1 mio autore : 
Tu se' solo colui, da cu' io tolsi 
Lo bello stile, che m' ha fatto onore." 3 

W.I. 

Sunxysede, Aug. 1, 1849. 

1 (1265-1321.) The illustrious author of the Divina Corn- 
media. 

2 (70-19 b. c.) A Roman poet of the Augustan age ; author 
of the JEneid, Pastoral Poems, and Georgics. 

8 u Thou art my master, and my author thou, 
Thou art alone the one from whom I took 
The beautiful style that hath done honor to me." 

Inferno, Canto I. lines 85-87. 
(Longfellow's trans.) 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER I. 



Birth and Parentage. — Characteristics of the Goldsmith Race. 

— Poetical Birthplace. — Goblin House. — Scenes of Boyhood. 

— Lissoy. — Picture of a Country Parson. — Goldsmith's 
Schoolmistress. — Byrne, the Village Schoolmaster. — Gold- 
smith's Hornpipe and Epigram. — Uncle Contarine. — School 
Studies and School Sports. — Mistakes of a Night. 

•v 
There are few writers for whom the reader feels 
such personal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith, for 
few have so eminently possessed the magic gift of 
identifying themselves with their writings. We read 
his character in every page, and grow into familiar 
intimacy with him as we read. The artless benevo- 
lence that beams throughout his works ; the whimsi- 
cal yet amiable views of human life and human na- 
ture: the unforced humor, blending so happily with 
good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed 
at times with a pleasing melancholy; even the very 
nature of his mellow, and flowing, and softly -tinted 
style, — all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his 
intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at 
the same time that we admire the author. While the 
productions of writers of loftier pretension and more 
sounding names are suffered to moulder on our shelves, 
those of Goldsmith are cherished and laid in our bos- 



2 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

oms. We do not quote them with ostentation, but 
they mingle with our minds, sweeten our tempers, and 
harmonize our thoughts; they put us in good-humor 
with ourselves and with the world, and in so doing 
they make us happier and better men. 

An acquaintance with the private biography of 
Goldsmith lets us into the secret of his gifted pages. 
We there discover them to be little more than tran- 
scripts of his own heart and picturings of his fortunes. 
There he shows himself the same kind, artless, good- 
humored, excursive, sensible, whimsical, intelligent 
being that he appears in his writings. Scarcely an 
adventure or character is given in his works that may 
not be traced to his own parti-colored story. Many 
of his most ludicrous scenes and ridiculous incidents 
have been drawn from his own blunders and mis- 
chances, and he seems really to have been buffeted 
into almost every maxim imparted by him for the 
instruction of his reader. 

Oliver Goldsmith was born on the 10th of Novem- 
ber, 1728, at the hamlet of Pallas, or Pallasmore, 
county of Longford, in Ireland. 1 He sprang from 
a respectable, but by no means a thrifty stock. 2 
Some families seem to inherit kindliness and incom- 
petency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from 
generation to generation. Such was the case with the 
Goldsmiths. "They were always," according to their 
own accounts, "a strange family; they rarely acted 

i The Goldsmith country is in the very centre of Ireland. The 
counties of Longford and Westmeath are in the province of Lein- 
ster and those of Roscommon and Leitrim are in Connaught. 
The river Shannon cuts the region in two, and the river Inny 
connects two of the small inland lakes. 

2 Originally the Goldsmith stock was English. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 3 

like other people ; their hearts were in the right place, 
but their heads seemed to be doing anything but what 
they ought." "They were remarkable," says another 
statement, "for their worth, but of no cleverness in 
the ways of the world." Oliver Goldsmith will be 
found faithfully to inherit the virtues and weaknesses 
of his race. 

His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, with he- 
reditary improvidence, married when very young and 
very poor, and starved along for several years on a 
small country curacy and the assistance of his wife's 
friends. His whole income, eked out by the pro- 
duce of some fields which he farmed, and of some 
occasional duties performed for his wife's uncle, the 
rector of an adjoining parish, did not exceed forty 
pounds. 

" And passing rich with forty pounds a year." l 

He inhabited an old, half rustic mansion, that stood 
on a rising ground in a rough, lonely part of the 
country, overlooking a low tract occasionally flooded 
by the river Inny. In this house Goldsmith was born, 
and it was a birthplace worthy of a poet; for, by all 
accounts, it was haunted ground. A tradition handed 
down among the neighboring peasantry states that, in 
after years, the house, remaining for some time un- 
tenanted, went to decay; the roof fell in, and it be- 
came so lonely and forlorn as to be a resort for the 
"good people " or fairies, who in Ireland are supposed 
to delight in old, crazy, deserted mansions for their 
midnight revels. All attempts to. repair it were in 
vain; the fairies battled stoutly to maintain posses- 
sion. A huge misshapen hobgoblin used to bestride 
1 From The Deserted Village. 



4 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the house every evening with an immense pair of jack- 
boots, which, in his efforts at hard riding, he would 
thrust through the roof, kicking to pieces all the work 
of the preceding day. The house was therefore left 
to its fate, and went to ruin. 

Such is the popular tradition about Goldsmith's 
birthplace. About two years after his birth a change 
came over the circumstances of his father. By the 
death of his wife's uncle he succeeded to the rectory 
of Kilkenny West; and, abandoning the old goblin 
mansion, he removed to Lissoy, 1 in the county of 
Westmeath, where he occupied a farm of seventy 
acres, situated on the skirts of that pretty little vil- 
lage. 

This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the 
little world whence he drew many of those pictures, 
rural and domestic, whimsical and touching, which 
abound throughout his works, and which appeal so 
eloquently both to the fancy and the heart. Lissoy 
is confidently cited as the original of his "Auburn" 
in the "Deserted Village; " his father's establishment, 
a mixture of farm and parsonage, furnished hints, it 
is said, for the rural economy 2 of the " Vicar of Wake- 
field;" and his father himself, with his learned sim- 
plicity, his guileless wisdom, his amiable piety, and 
utter ignorance of the world, has been exquisitely 
portrayed in the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let us pause 
for a moment, and draw from Goldsmith's writings 
one or two of those pictures which, under feigned 
names, represent his father and his family, and the 
happy fireside of his childish days. 

1 Since the poet's time the village has been called Auburn. — 
Lippincott's Gazetteer. For a description, see pp. 242-246. 

2 The rural scenes. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 5 

"My father," says the "Man in Black," who, in 
some respects, is a counterpart of Goldsmith himself, 
— "my father, the younger son of a good family, was 
possessed of a small living in the church. His educa- 
tion was above his fortune, and his generosity greater 
than his education. Poor as he was, he had his flat- 
terers poorer than himself: for every dinner he gave 
them they returned him an equivalent in praise, and 
this was all he wanted. The same ambition that actu- 
ates a monarch at the head of his army, influenced my 
father at the head of his table ; he told the story of 
the ivy tree, and that was laughed at ; he repeated the 
jest of the two scholars and one pair of breeches, and 
the company laughed at that ; but the story of Taffy 1 
in the sedan-chair was sure to set the table in a roar. 
Thus his pleasure increased in proportion to the plea- 
sure he gave; he loved all the world, and he fancied 
all the world loved him. 

"As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the 
very extent of it : he had no intention of leaving his 
children money, for that was dross ; he resolved they 
should have learning, for learning, he used to observe, 
was better than silver or gold. For this purpose he 
undertook to instruct us himself, and took as much 
care to form our morals as to improve our understand- 
ing. We were told that universal benevolence was 
what first cemented society : we were taught to con- 
sider all the wants of mankind as our own ; to regard 
the human face divine 2 with affection and esteem ; 
he wound us up to be mere machines of pity, and ren- 
dered us incapable of withstanding the slightest im- 
pulse made either by real or fictitious distress. In a 

1 Irish for Davy, a nickname for any Welshman. 

2 From Milton's Paradise Lost, book iii. 1. 44. 



6 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

word, we were perfectly instructed in the art of giv- 
ing away thousands before we were taught the neces- 
sary qualifications of getting a farthing." 1 

In the " Deserted Village " we have another picture 
of his father and his father's fireside: — 

" His house was known to all the vagrant train, 
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain; 
The long-remembered beggar was his guest, 
Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast; 
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
- Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd; 
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
Sat by his fire, and talked the night away; 
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, 
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. 
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
And quite forgot their vices in their woe; 
Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
His pity gave ere charity began." 

The family of the worthy pastor consisted of five 
sons and three daughters. Henry, the eldest, was the 
good man's pride and hope, and he tasked his slender 
means to the utmost in educating him for a learned 
and distinguished career. Oliver was the second son, 
and seven years younger than Henry, who was the 
guide and protector of his childhood, and to whom he 
was most tenderly attached throughout life. 

Oliver's education began when he was about three 
years old; that is to say, he was gathered under the 
wings of one of those good old motherly dames, found 
in every village, who cluck together the whole callow 

1 " The History of the Man in Black " is the title of Letter 
No. xxvii of the Letters of a Citizen of the World, written by Gold- 
smith. They were begun as the Chinese Letters in the Public 
Ledger newspaper, in January, 1760. They were collected under 
the more imposing title and printed in two volumes in 1762. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 7 

brood of the neighborhood, to teach them their letters 
and keep them out of harm's way. Mistress Eliza- 
beth Delap, for that was her name, flourished in this 
capacity for upward of fifty years, and it was the pride 
and boast of her declining days, when nearly ninety 
years of age, that she was the first that had put a 
book (doubtless a hornbook) 1 into Goldsmith's hands. 
Apparently he did not much profit by it, for she con- 
fessed he was one of the dullest boys she had ever 
dealt with, insomuch that she had sometimes doubted 
whether it was possible to make anything of him : a 
common case with imaginative children, who are apt 
to be beguiled from the dry abstractions of elementary 
study by the picturings of the fancy. 

At six years of age he passed into the hands of the 
village schoolmaster, one Thomas (or, as he was com- 
monly and irreverently named, Paddy) Byrne, a capi- 
tal tutor for a poet. He had been educated for a 
pedagogue, but had enlisted in the army, served 
abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time, and 
risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in 
Spain. At the return of peace, having no longer ex- 
ercise for the sword, he resumed the ferule, and drilled 
the urchin populace of Lissoy. Goldsmith is sup- 
posed to have had him and his school in view in the 
following sketch in his "Deserted Village": — 

"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, 
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, 
The village master taught his little school; 
A man severe he was, and stern to view, 
I knew him well, and every truant knew: 

1 The hornbook was a leaf, on which were printed the alphabet 
and the Lord's Prayer. It was covered with transparent horn 
and fixed in a frame with a handle. 



8 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace 

The day's disasters in his morning face ; 

Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee 

4-tall his jokes, for many a joke had he; 

Full well the busy whisper circling round, 

Convey 'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd: 

Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 

The love he bore to learning was in fault; 

The village all declared how much he knew, 

'T was certain he could write, and cipher too; 

Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 

And e'en the story ran that he could gauge: 

In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, 

For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still; 

While words of learned length and thund'ring sound 

Amazed the gazing rustics, ranged around, — 

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 

That one small head could carry all he knew." 

There are certain whimsical traits in the character 
of Byrne, not given in the foregoing sketch. He was 
fond of talking of his vagabond wanderings in foreign 
lands, and had brought with him from the wars a 
world of campaigning stories, of which he was gener- 
ally the hero, and which he would deal forth to his 
wondering scholars when he ought to have been teach- 
ing them their lessons. These travellers' tales had a 
powerful effect upon the vivid imagination of Gold- 
smith, and awakened an unconquerable passion for 
wandering and seeking adventure. 

Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and ex- 
ceedingly superstitious. He was deeply versed in the 
fairy superstitions which abound in Ireland, all which 
he professed implicitly to believe. Under his tuition 
Goldsmith soon became almost as great a proficient 
in fairy lore. From this branch of good-for-nothing 
knowledge his studies, by an easy transition, extended 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 9 

to the histories of robbers, pirates, smugglers, and 
the whole race of Irish rogues and rapparees. 1 
Everything, in short, that savored of romance, fable, 
and adventure was congenial to his poetic mind, and 
took instant root there; but the slow plants of useful 
knowledge were apt to be overrun, if not choked, by 
the weeds of his quick imagination. 

Another trait of his motley preceptor, Byrne, was 
a disposition to dabble in poetry, and this likewise 
was caught by his pupil. Before he was eight years 
old, Goldsmith had contracted a habit of scribbling 
verses on small scraps of paper, which, in a little 
while, he would throw into the fire. A few of these 
sibylline 2 leaves, however, were rescued from the 
flames and conveyed to his mother. The good woman 
read them with a mother's delight, and saw at once 
that her son was a genius and a poet. From that 
time she beset her husband with solicitations to give 
the boy an education suitable to his talents. The 
worthy man was already straitened by the costs of 
instruction of his eldest son, Henry, and had intended 
to bring his second son up to a trade ; but the mother 
would listen to no such thing; as usual, her influence 
prevailed, and Oliver, instead of being instructed in 
some humble but cheerful and gainful handicraft, 
was devoted to poverty and the Muse. 

A severe attack of the small-pox caused him to be 
taken from under the care of his story-telling pre- 
ceptor, Byrne. His malady had nearly proved fatal, 
and his face remained pitted through life. On his 
recovery he was placed under the charge of the Kev. 
Mr. Griffin, schoolmaster of Elphin, in Roscommon, 

1 Vagabonds. 

2 Inspired ; like the books of the sibyls, or prophets. 



10 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and became an inmate in the house of his uncle, John 
Goldsmith, Esq, of Ballyoughter, 1 in that vicinity. 
He now entered upon studies of a higher order, but 
without making any uncommon progress. Still, a 
careless, easy facility of disposition, an amusing ec- 
centricity of manners, and a vein of quiet and pecu- 
liar humor, • rendered him a general favorite, and a 
trifling incident soon induced his uncle's family to 
concur in his mother's opinion of his genius. 

A number of young folks had assembled at his 
uncle's to dance. One of the company, named Cum- 
mings, played on the violin. In the course of the 
evening Oliver undertook a hornpipe. His short and 
clumsy figure, and his face pitted and discolored with 
the small-pox, rendered him a ludicrous figure in the 
eyes of the musician, who made merry at his expense, 
dubbing him his little 2Esop. 2 Goldsmith was nettled 
by the jest, and, stopping short in the hornpipe, ex- 
claimed, — 

" Our herald hath proclaimed this saying, 
See iEsop dancing, and his monkey playing." 

The repartee was thought wonderful for a boy of 
nine years old, and Oliver became forthwith the wit 
and the bright genius of the family. It was thought 
a pity he should not receive the same advantages with 
his elder brother Henry, who had been sent to the 
University; and, as his father's circumstances would 
not afford it, several of his relatives, spurred on by 

1 " Bally " = a town. It is prefixed to the names of many 
parishes in Ireland. The names Ballyoughter, Ballymahon ap- 
pear repeatedly in this book. They may easily be located on a 
map of the Goldsmith country. 

2 A writer of fables who flourished about 570 B. c. ; he is 
sometimes represented as " a perfect monster of ugliness and 
deformity." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 11 

the representations of his mother, agreed to contribute 
towards the expense. The greater part, however, was 
borne by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarine. 
This worthy man had been the college companion of 
Bishop Berkeley, 1 and was possessed of moderate 
means, holding the living 2 of Carrick -on -Shannon. 3 
He had married the sister of Goldsmith's father, but 
was now a widower, with an only child, a daughter, 
named Jane. Contarine was a kind-hearted man, 
with a generosity beyond his means. He took Gold- 
smith into favor from his infancy ; his house was open 
to him during the holidays; his daughter Jane, two 
years older than the poet, was his early playmate; 
and uncle Contarine continued to the last one of his 
most active, unwavering, and generous friends. 

Fitted out in a great measure by this considerate 
relative, Oliver was now transferred to schools of a 
higher order, to prepare him for the University; first 
to one at Athlone, 4 kept by the Rev. Mr. Campbell, 
and, at the end of two years, to one at Edgeworths- 
town, 5 under the superintendence of the Rev. Patrick 
Hughes. 

Even at these schools his proficiency does not ap- 
pear to have been brilliant. He was indolent and 
careless, however, rather than dull, and, on the whole, 
appears to have been well thought of by his teachers. 
In his studies he inclined towards the Latin poets and 
historians; relished Ovid and Horace, and delighted 

1 (1685-1753). An Irish prelate and philosophical writer. 
He was educated at Dublin University. 

2 The charge, or parish, of a clergyman of the Church of Eng- 
land. Sometimes, the income which a clergyman obtains from 
his parish. 

3 In Leitrim. 4 In Westmeath. 6 In Longford. 



12 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

in Livy. He exercised himself with pleasure in read- 
ing and translating Tacitus, and was brought to pay 
attention to style in his compositions by a reproof 
from his brother Henry, to whom he had written 
brief and confused letters, and who told him in reply, 
that, if he had but little to say, to endeavor to say 
that little well. 

The career of his brother Henry at the University 
was enough to stimulate him to exertion. He seemed 
to be realizing all his father's hopes, and was winning 
collegiate honors that the good man considered indica- 
tive of his future success in life. 

In the meanwhile, Oliver, if not distinguished 
among his teachers, was popular among his school- 
mates. He had a thoughtless generosity extremely 
captivating to young hearts: his temper was quick 
and sensitive, and easily offended ; but his anger was 
momentary, and it was impossible for him to harbor 
resentment. He was the leader of all boyish sports 
and athletic amusements, especially ball-playing, and 
he was foremost in all mischievous pranks. Many 
years afterward, an old man, Jack Fitzsimmons, 
one of the directors of the sports, and keeper of the 
ball-court at Ballymahon, used to boast of having 
been schoolmate of "Noll Goldsmith," as he called 
him, and would dwell with vainglory on one of their 
exploits, in robbing the orchard of Tirlicken, an old 
family residence of Lord Annaly. The exploit, how- 
ever, had nearly involved disastrous consequences; 
for the crew of juvenile depredators were captured, 
like Shakespeare and his deer-stealing colleagues; 
and nothing but the respectability of Goldsmith's 
connections saved him from the punishment that 
would have awaited more plebeian delinquents. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 13 

An amusing incident is related as occurring in 
Goldsmith's last journey homeward from Edge worths- 
town. His father's house was about twenty miles 
distant; the road lay through a rough country, im- 
passable for carriages. Goldsmith procured a horse 
for the journey, and a friend furnished him with a 
guinea for travelling expenses. He was but a strip- 
ling of sixteen, and being thus suddenly mounted on 
horseback, with money in his pocket, it is no wonder 
that his head was turned. He determined to play 
the man, and to spend his money in independent 
traveller's style. Accordingly, instead of pushing 
directly for home, he halted for the night at the little 
town of Ardagh, 1 and, accosting the first person he 
met, inquired, with somewhat of a consequential air, 
for the best house in the place. Unluckily, the per- 
son he had accosted was one Kelly, a notorious wag, 
who was quartered in the family of one Mr. Feather- 
stone, a gentleman of fortune. Amused with the self- 
consequence of the stripling, and willing to play off a 
practical joke at his expense, he directed him to what 
was literally "the best house in the place," namely, 
the family mansion of Mr. Featherstone. Goldsmith 
accordingly rode up to what he supposed to be an inn, 
ordered his horse to be taken to the stable, walked 
into the parlor, seated himself by the fire, and de- 
manded what he could have for supper. On ordinary 
occasions he was diffident and even awkward in his 
manners, but here he was "at ease in his inn," and 
felt called upon to show his manhood and enact the 
experienced traveller. His person was by no means 
calculated to play off his pretensions, for he was short 
and thick, with a pock-marked face, and an air and 
1 In Lougford. 



14 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

carriage by no means of a distinguished cast. The 
owner of the house, however, soon discovered his 
whimsical mistake, and, being a man of humor, de- 
termined to indulge it, especially as he accidentally 
learned that this intruding guest was the son of an 
old acquaintance. 

Accordingly, Goldsmith was "fooled to the top of 
his bent," and permitted to have full sway through- 
out the evening. Never was schoolboy more elated. 
When supper was served, he most condescendingly 
insisted that the landlord, his wife, and daughter 
should partake, and ordered a bottle of wine to crown 
the repast and benefit the house. His last flourish 
was on going to bed, when he gave especial orders 
to have a hot cake at breakfast. His confusion and 
dismay, on discovering the next morning that he had 
been swaggering in this free and easy way in the 
house of a private gentleman, may be readily con- 
ceived. True to his habit of turning the events of his 
life to literary account, we find this chapter of ludi- 
crous blunders and cross-purposes dramatized many 
years afterward in his admirable comedy of "She 
Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes of a Night." 

CHAPTER II. 

Improvident Marriages in the Goldsmith Family. — Goldsmith 
at the University. — Situation of a Sizer. — Tyranny of Wilder, 
the Tutor. — Pecuniary Straits. — Street-Ballads. — College 
Riot. — Gallows Walsh. — College Prize. — A Dance Inter- 
rupted. 

While Oliver was making his way somewhat negli- 
gently through the schools, his elder brother Henry 
was rejoicing his father's heart by his career at the 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 15 

University. He soon distinguished himself at the 
examinations, and obtained a scholarship in 1743. 
This is a collegiate distinction which serves as a 
stepping-stone in any of the learned professions, and 
which leads to advancement in the University should 
the individual choose to remain there. His father 
now trusted that he would push forward for that com- 
fortable provision, a fellowship, and thence to higher 
dignities and emoluments. Henry, however, had the 
improvidence, or the "unworldliness," of his race: 
returning to the country during the succeeding vaca- 
tion, he married for love, relinquished, of course, all 
his collegiate prospects and advantages, set up a 
school in his father's neighborhood, and buried his 
talents and acquirements for the remainder of his life 
in a curacy of forty pounds a year. 

Another matrimonial event occurred not long after- 
ward in the Goldsmith family, to disturb the equa- 
nimity of its worthy head. This was the clandestine 
marriage of his daughter Catherine with a young 
gentleman of the name of Hodson, who had been 
confided to the care of her brother Henry to complete 
his studies. As the youth was of wealthy parentage, 
it was thought a lucky match for the Goldsmith fam- 
ily; but the tidings of the event stung the bride's 
father to the soul. Proud of his integrity, and jeal- 
ous of that good name which was his chief possession, 
he saw himself and his family subjected to the de- 
grading suspicion of having abused a trust reposed in 
them to promote a mercenary match. In the first 
transports of his feelings, he is said to have uttered 
a wish that his daughter might never have a child to 
bring like shame and sorrow on her head. The hasty 
wish, so contrary to the usual benignity of the man, 



18 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

was recalled and repented of almost as soon as ut- 
tered; but it was considered baleful in its effects by 
the superstitious neighborhood; for, though his daugh- 
ter bore three children, they all died before her. 

A more effectual measure was taken by Mr. Gold- 
smith to ward off the apprehended imputation, but 
one which imposed a heavy burden on his family. 
This was to furnish a marriage portion of four hun- 
dred pounds, that his daughter might not be said to 
have entered her husband's family empty-handed. 
To raise the sum in cash was impossible ; but he as- 
signed to Mr. Hodson his little farm and the income 
of his tithes until the marriage portion should be 
paid. In the mean time, as his living did not amount 
to X200 per annum, he had to practise the strictest 
economy to pay off gradually this heavy tax incurred 
by his nice sense of honor. 

The first of his family to feel the effects of this 
economy was Oliver. The time had now arrived for 
him to be sent to the University; and, accordingly, 
on the 11th June, 1745, 1 when seventeen years of 
age, he entered Trinity College, Dublin ; but his fa- 
ther was no longer able to place him there as a pen- 
sioner 2 as he had done his eldest son Henry ; he was 
obliged, therefore, to enter him as a sizer, or "poor 
scholar.'' He was lodged in one of the top rooms 
adjoining the library of the building, numbered 35, 
where it is said his name may still be seen, scratched 
by himself upon a window-frame. 3 

1 This date ought to be 1744. Goldsmith was fifteen years of 
age. 

2 A " pensioner " is a student who pays for his board himself; 
a " sizer" (more properly "sizar "), one who has free board. 

8 This frame has been transferred to the Library building, 
where it is still preserved. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 17 

A student of this class is taught and boarded gra- 
tuitously, and has to pay but a small sum for his 
room. It is expected, in return for these advantages, 
that he will be a diligent student, and render himself 
useful in a variety of ways. In Trinity College, at 
the time of Goldsmith's admission, several derogatory, 
and, indeed, menial offices were exacted from the 
sizer, as if the college sought to indemnify itself for 
conferring benefits by inflicting indignities. He was 
obliged to sweep part of the courts in the morning; 
to carry up the dishes from the kitchen to the fel- 
lows' 1 table, and to wait in the hall until that body 
had dined. His very dress marked the inferiority of 
the "poor student " to his happier classmates. It was 
a black gown of coarse stuff without sleeves, and a 
plain black cloth cap without a tassel. We can con- 
ceive nothing more odious and ill-judged than these 
distinctions, which attached the idea of degradation 
to poverty, and placed the indigent youth of merit 
below the worthless minion of fortune. They were 
calculated to wound and irritate the noble mind, and 
to render the base mind baser. 

Indeed, the galling effect of these servile tasks 
upon youths of proud spirits and quick sensibilities 
became at length too notorious to be disregarded. 
About fifty years since, on a Trinity Sunday, 2 a num- 
ber of persons were assembled to witness the college 
ceremonies ; and as a sizer was carrying up a dish of 
meat to the fellows' table, a burly citizen in the crowd 
made some sneering observation on the servility of his 
office. Stung to the quick, the high-spirited youth 

1 In Great Britain, graduate members of a college, who receive 
a share of its revenues. 

2 The eighth Sunday after Easter. 



18 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

instantly flung the dish and its contents at the head 
of the sneerer. The sizer was sharply reprimanded 
for this outbreak of wounded pride, but the degrad- 
ing task was from that day forward very properly 
consigned to menial hands. 

It was with the utmost repugnance that Goldsmith 
entered college in this capacity. His shy and sensi- 
tive nature was affected by the inferior station he was 
doomed to hold among his gay and opulent fellow-stu- 
dents, and he became, at times, moody and despond- 
ent. A recollection of these early mortifications in- 
duced him, in after years, most strongly to dissuade 
his brother Henry, the clergyman, from sending a son 
to college on a like footing. "If he has ambition, 
strong passions, and an exquisite sensibility of con- 
tempt, do not send him there, unless you have no 
other trade for him except your own." 

To add to his annoyances, the fellow of the college 
who had the peculiar control of his studies, the Rev. 
Theaker Wilder, was a man of violent and capricious 
temper, and of diametrically opposite tastes. The 
tutor was devoted to the exact sciences; Goldsmith 
was for the classics. Wilder endeavored to force his 
favorite studies upon the student by harsh means, 
suggested by his own coarse and savage nature. He 
abused him in presence of the class as ignorant and 
stupid; ridiculed him as awkward and ugly, and at 
times, in the transports of his temper, indulged in per- 
sonal violence. The effect was to aggravate a passive 
distaste into a positive aversion. Goldsmith was loud 
in expressing his contempt for mathematics and his 
dislike of ethics and logic; and the prejudices thus 
imbibed continued through life. Mathematics he al- 
ways pronounced a science to which the meanest in- 
tellects were competent. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 19 

A truer cause of this distaste for the severer studies 
may probably be found in his natural indolence and 
his love of convivial pleasures. U I was a lover of 
mirth, good-humor, and even sometimes of fun," 
said he, "from my childhood." He sang a good song, 
was a boon companion, and could not resist any temp- 
tation to social enjoyment. He endeavored to per- 
suade himself that learning and dulness went hand in 
hand, and that genius was not to be put in harness. 
Even in riper years, when the consciousness of his 
own deficiencies ought to have convinced him of the 
importance of early study, he speaks slightingly of 
college honors. 

"A lad," says he, "whose passions are not strong 
enough in youth to mislead him from that path of 
science which his tutors, and not his inclination, have 
chalked out, by four or five years' perseverance will 
probably obtain every advantage and honor his college 
can bestow. I would compare the man whose youth 
has been thus passed in the tranquillity of dispas- 
sionate prudence, to liquors that never ferment, and, 
consequently, continue always muddy." 1 

The death of his worthy father, which took place 
early in 1747, rendered Goldsmith's situation at col- 
lege extremely irksome. His mother was left with 
little more than the means of providing for the wants 
of her household, and was unable to furnish him any 
remittances. He would have been compelled, there- 
fore, to leave college, had it not been for the occa- 
sional contributions of friends, the foremost among 
whom was his generous and warm-hearted uncle Con- 
tarine. Still these supplies were so scanty and pre- 

1 Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe, ch. ix., 
published in 1759. 



20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

carious, that in the intervals between them he was 
put to great straits. He had two college associates 
from whom he would occasionally borrow small sums ; 
one was an early schoolmate, by the name of Beatty ; 
the other a cousin, and the chosen companion of his 
frolics, Robert (or rather Bob) Bryan ton, of Bally- 
mulvey House, near Ballymahon. When these casual 
supplies failed him, he was more than once obliged 
to raise funds for his immediate wants by pawning his 
books. At times he sank into despondency, but he 
had what he termed "a knack at hoping," which soon 
buoyed him up again. He began now to resort to his 
poetical vein as a source of profit, scribbling street 
ballads, which he privately sold for five shillings each 
at a shop which dealt in such small wares of litera- 
ture. He felt an author's affection for these unowned 
bantlings, and we are told would stroll privately 
through the streets at night to hear them sung, listen- 
ing to the comments and criticisms of bystanders, and 
observing the degree of applause which each received. 
Edmund Burke 1 was a fellow- student with Gold- 
smith at the college. Neither the statesman nor the 
poet gave promise of their future celebrity, though 
Burke certainly surpassed his contemporary in indus- 
try and application, and evinced more disposition for 
self -improvement, associating himself with a number 
of his fellow-students in a debating club, in which 
they discussed literary topics, and exercised them- 
selves in composition. 

1 Edmund Burke (1729-1797), an orator and statesman of 
great eminence. He was one of the stanchest and most earnest 
advocates of justice to the American Colonies. For many years 
he was a commanding figure in English politics, and in his later 
years was a bitter enemy of the French Revolution. He and 
Goldsmith were intimately associated in London, after 1760. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 21 

Goldsmith may likewise have belonged to this asso- 
ciation, but his propensity was rather to mingle with 
the gay and thoughtless. On one occasion we find 
him implicated in an affair that came nigh producing 
his expulsion. A report was brought to college that 
a scholar was in the hands of the bailiffs. 1 This was 
an insult in which every gownsman felt himself in- 
volved. A number of the scholars flew to arms, and 
sallied forth to battle, headed by a hair-brained fel- 
low nicknamed Gallows Walsh, noted for his aptness 
at mischief and fondness for riot. The stronghold of 
the bailiff was carried by storm, the scholar set at 
liberty, and the delinquent catch-pole borne off cap- 
tive to the college, where, having no pump to put him 
under, they satisfied the demands of collegiate law by 
ducking him in an old cistern. 

Flushed with this signal victory, Gallows Walsh 
now harangued his followers, and proposed to break 
open Newgate, or the Black Dog, as the prison was 
called, and effect a general jail-delivery. He was 
answered by shouts of concurrence, and away went 
the throng of mad-cap youngsters, fully bent upon 
putting an end to the tyranny of law. They were 
joined by the mob of the city, and made an attack 
upon the prison with true Irish precipitation and 
thoughtlessness, never having provided themselves 
with cannon to batter its stone walls. A few shots 
from the prison brought them to their senses, and 
they beat a hasty retreat, — two of the townsmen 
being killed, and several wounded. 

A severe scrutiny of this affair took place at the 
University. Four students, who had been ringlead- 
ers, were expelled ; four others, who had been promi- 
1 Sheriff's officers. 



22 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

nent in the affray, were publicly admonished; among 
the latter was the unlucky Goldsmith. 

To make up for this disgrace, he gained, within 
a month afterward, one of the minor prizes of the 
college. It is true it was one of the very smallest, 
amounting in pecuniary value to but thirty shillings, 
but it was the first distinction he had gained in his 
whole collegiate career. This turn of success and 
sudden influx of wealth proved too much for the head 
of our poor student. He forthwith gave a supper and 
dance at his chamber to a number of young persons 
of both sexes from the city, in direct violation of col- 
lege rules. The unwonted sound of the fiddle reached 
the ears of the implacable Wilder. He rushed to the 
scene of unhallowed festivity, inflicted corporal pun- 
ishment on the "father of the feast," and turned his 
astonished guests neck and heels out of doors. 

This filled the measure of poor Goldsmith's humili- 
ations; he felt degraded both within college and 
without. He dreaded the ridicule of his fellow-stu- 
dents for the ludicrous termination of his orgie, and 
he was ashamed to meet his city acquaintances after 
the degrading chastisement received in their presence, 
and after their own ignominious expulsion. Above 
all, he felt it impossible to submit any longer to the 
insulting tyranny of Wilder: he determined, there- 
fore, to leave, not merely the college, but also his 
native land, and to bury what he conceived to be his 
irretrievable disgrace in some distant country. He 
accordingly sold his books and clothes, and sallied 
forth from the college walls the very next day, intend- 
ing to embark at Cork for — he scarce knew where 
— America, or any other part bej^ond sea. With his 
usual heedless imprudence, however, he loitered about 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 23 

Dublin until his finances were reduced to a shilling; 
with this amount of specie he set out on his journey. 

For three whole days he subsisted on his shilling; 
when that was spent, he parted with some of the 
clothes from his back, until, reduced almost to naked- 
ness, he was four-and-twenty hours without food, 
insomuch that he declared a handful of gray peas, 
given to him by a girl at a wake, was one of the most 
delicious repasts he had ever tasted. Hunger, fatigue, 
and destitution brought down his spirit and calmed 
his anger. Fain would he have retraced his steps, 
could he have done so with any salvo 1 for the linger- 
ings of his pride. In his extremity he conveyed to 
his brother Henry information of his distress, and of 
the rash project on which he had set out. His affec- 
tionate brother hastened to his relief ; furnished him 
with money and clothes; soothed his feelings with 
gentle counsel; prevailed upon him to return to col- 
lege, and effected an indifferent reconciliation between 
him and Wilder. 

After this irregular sally upon life he remained 
nearly two years longer at the University, giving 
proofs of talent in occasional translations from the 
classics, for one of which he received a premium, 
awarded only to those who are the first in literary 
merit. Still he never* made much figure at college, 
his natural disinclination to study being increased by 
the harsh treatment he continued to experience from 
his tutor. 

Among the anecdotes told of him while at college, 

is one indicative of that prompt but thoughtless and 

often whimsical benevolence which throughout life 

formed one of the most eccentric, yet endearing points 

1 Allowance or reservation. 



24 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of his character. He was engaged to breakfast one 
day with a college intimate, but failed to make his 
appearance. His friend repaired to his room, knocked 
at the door, and was bidden to enter. To his surprise, 
he found Goldsmith in his bed, immersed to his chin 
in feathers. A serio-comic story explained the cir- 
cumstance. In the course of the preceding evening's 
stroll he had met with a woman with five children, 
who implored his charity. Her husband was in the 
hospital ; she was just from the country, a stranger, 
and destitute, without food or shelter for her helpless 
offspring. This was too much for the kind heart of 
Goldsmith. He was almost as poor as herself, it is 
true, and had no money in his pocket ; but he brought 
her to the college gate, gave her the blankets from 
his bed to cover her little brood, and part of his 
clothes for her to sell and purchase food; and, find- 
ing himself cold during the night, had cut open his 
bed and buried himself among the feathers. 

At length, on the 27th of February, 1749, O. S., 1 
he was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, 
and took his final leave of the University. He was 
freed from college rule, that emancipation so ardently 
coveted by the thoughtless student, and which too 
generally launches him amid the cares, the hardships, 
and vicissitudes of life. He was freed, too, from the 
brutal tyranny of Wilder. If his kind and placable 
nature could retain any resentment for past injuries, 
it might have been gratified by learning subsequently 
that the passionate career of Wilder was terminated 
by a violent death in the course of a dissolute brawl; 

1 In 1752 the calendar was changed so that the 3d of Septem- 
ber became the 14th. Earlier dates are called Old Style; later 
ones, New Style. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 25 

but Goldsmith took no delight in the misfortunes 
even of his enemies. 

He now returned to his friends, no longer the stu- 
dent to sport away the happy interval of vacation, but 
the anxious man, who is henceforth to shift for him- 
self and make his way through the world. In fact, 
he had no legitimate home to return to. At the death 
of his father, the paternal house at Lissoy, in which 
Goldsmith had passed his childhood, had been taken 
by Mr. Hodson, who had married his sister Cather- 
ine. His mother had removed to Ballymahon, where 
she occupied a small house, and had to practise the 
severest frugality. His elder brother Henry served 
the curacy and taught the school of his late father's 
parish, and lived in narrow circumstances at Gold- 
smith's birthplace, the old goblin house at Pallas. 

None of his relatives were in circumstances to aid 
him with anything more than a temporary home, and 
the aspect of every one seemed somewhat changed. 
In fact, his career at college had disappointed his 
friends, and they began to doubt his being the great 
genius they had fancied him. He whimsically alludes 
to this circumstance in that piece of autobiography, 
"The Man in Black," in the "Citizen of the World." 

" The first opportunity my father had of finding his 
expectations disappointed was in the middling figure 
I made at the University: he had flattered himself 
that he should soon see me rising into the foremost 
rank in literary reputation, but was mortified to find 
me utterly unnoticed and unknown. His disappoint- 
ment might have been partly ascribed to his having 
overrated my talents, and partly to my dislike of 
mathematical reasonings at a time when my imagina- 
tion and memory, yet unsatisfied, were more eager 



26 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

after new objects than desirous of reasoning upon 
those I knew. This, however, did not please my 
tutors, who observed, indeed, that I was a little dull, 
but at the same time allowed that I seemed to be very 
good-natured, and had no harm in me." 1 

The only one of his relatives who did not appear to 
lose faith in him was his uncle Contarine. This kind 
and considerate man, it is said, saw in him a warmth 
of heart requiring some skill to direct, and a latent 
genius that wanted time to mature ; and these impres- 
sions none of his subsequent follies and irregularities 
wholly obliterated. His purse and affection, there- 
fore, as well as his house, were now open to him, and 
he became his chief counsellor and director after his 
father's death. He urged him to prepare for holy 
orders; and others of his relatives concurred in the 
advice. Goldsmith had a settled repugnance to a 
clerical life. This has been ascribed by some to con- 
scientious scruples, not considering himself of a tem- 
per and frame of mind for such a sacred office ; others 
attributed it to his roving propensities, and his desire 
to visit foreign countries; he himself gives a whim- 
sical objection in his biography of "The Man in 
Black": "To be obliged to wear a long wig when I 
liked a short one, or a black coat when I generally 
dressed in brown, I thought such a restraint upon my 
liberty that I absolutely rejected the proposal." 

In effect, however, his scruples were overruled, and 
he agreed to qualify himself for the office. He was 
now only twenty-one, and must pass two years of pro- 
bation. They were two years of rather loitering, un- 
settled life. Sometimes he was at Lissoy, participa- 
ting with thoughtless enjoyment in the rural sports 
1 Citizen of the World, letter xxvii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 27 

and occupations of his brother-in-law, Mr. Hodson; 
sometimes he was with his brother Henry, at the old 
goblin mansion at Pallas, assisting him occasionally 
in his school. The early marriage and unambitious 
retirement of Henry, though so subversive of the fond 
plans of his father, had proved happy in their results. 
He was already surrounded by a blooming family; he 
was contented with his lot, beloved by his parishion- 
ers, and lived in the daily practice of all the amiable 
virtues, and the immediate enjoyment of their reward. 
Of the tender affection inspired in the breast of Gold- 
smith by the constant kindness of this excellent bro- 
ther, and of the longing recollection with which, in 
the lonely wanderings of after years, he looked back 
upon this scene of domestic felicity, we have a touch- 
ing instance in the well-known opening to his poem 
of " The Traveller : " — 

" Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow. 
Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po; 



Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee; 
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, 
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend ; 
Bless'd be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire; 
Bless'd that abode, where want and pain repair, 
And every stranger finds a ready chair: 
Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd 
Where all the ruddy family around 
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale; 
Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
And learn the luxury of doing good." 



28 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

During this loitering life Goldsmith pursued no 
study, but rather amused himself with miscellaneous 
reading; such as biography, travels, poetry, novels, 
plays — everything, in short, that administered to the 
imagination. Sometimes he strolled along the banks 
of the river Inny; where, in after years, when he had 
become famous, his favorite seats and haunts used to 
be pointed out. Often he joined in the rustic sports 
of the villages, and became adroit at throwing the 
sledge, a favorite feat of activity and strength in Ire- 
land. Kecollections of these "healthful sports" we 
find in his "Deserted Village :" — 

" How often have I bless'd the coming day, 
When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
And all the village train, from labor free, 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree: 
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground, 
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round." 

A boon companion in all his rural amusements was 
his cousin and college crony, Robert Bryanton, with 
whom he sojourned occasionally at Ballymulvey House 
in the neighborhood. They used to make excursions 
about the country on foot, sometimes fishing, some- 
times hunting otter in the Inny. They got up a 
country club at the little inn of Ballymahon, of which 
Goldsmith soon became the oracle and prime wit; 
astonishing his unlettered associates by his learning, 
and being considered capital at a song and a story. 
From the rustic conviviality of the inn at Ballymahon, 
and the company which used to assemble there, it is 
surmised that he took some hints in after life for his 
picturing of Tony Lumpkin and his associates : " Dick 
Muggins, the exciseman; Jack Slang, the horse doc- 
tor ; little Aminidab, that grinds the music-box, and 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 29 

Tom Twist, that spins the pewter platter." 1 Nay, it 
is thought that Tony's drinking-song at the "Three 
Jolly Pigeons" was but a revival of one of the con- 
vivial catches at Ballyinahon : — 

" Then come put the jorum - about, 
And let us be merry and clever, 
Our hearts and our liquors are stout, 

Here 's the Three Jolly Pigeons forever. 
Let some cry of woodcock or hare, 

Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons; 
But of all the gay birds in the air, 

Here 's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons. 

Toroddle, toroddle, toroll." 

Notwithstanding all these accomplishments and this 
rural popularity, his friends began to shake their 
heads and shrug their shoulders when they spoke of 
him ; and his brother Henry noted with anything but 
satisfaction his frequent visits to the club at Bally - 
mahon. He emerged, however, unscathed from this 
dangerous ordeal, more fortunate in this respect than 
his comrade Bryanton; but he retained throughout 
life a fondness for clubs : often, too, in the course of 
his checkered career, he looked back to this period of 
rural sports and careless enjoyments as one of the few 
sunny spots of his cloudy life; and though he ulti- 
mately rose to associate with birds of a finer feather, 
his heart would still yearn in secret after the "Three 
Jolly Pigeons." 

1 Mat Muggins, Tom Twist, Jack Slang, and Aminidab were 
the companions of Tony Lumpkin in the alehouse scene, in She 
Stoops to Conquer, I. ii. The stage direction reads as follows: 
u Several shabby Fellows with Punch and Tobacco, Tony at the 
head of the table, a little higher than the rest : a Mallet in his 
hand." At the solicitation of the others, Tony sings his song. 

2 A bowl of punch. 



30 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER III. 

Goldsmith rejected by the Bishop. — Second Sally to see the 
World. — Takes Passage for America. — Ship Sails without 
Him. — Return on Fiddle-Back. — A Hospitable Friend. — 
The Counsellor. 

The time had now arrived for Goldsmith to apply 
for orders, and he presented himself accordingly be- 
fore the bishop of Elphin for ordination. We have 
stated his great objection to clerical life, the obliga- 
tion to wear a black coat; and, whimsical as it may 
appear, dress seems in fact to have formed an ob- 
stacle to his entrance into the church. He had ever a 
passion for clothing his sturdy but awkward little 
person in gay colors; and on this solemn occasion, 
when it was to be supposed his garb would be of suit- 
able gravity, he appeared luminously arrayed in scar- 
let breeches! He was rejected by the bishop: some 
say for want of sufficient studious preparation, his 
rambles and frolics with Bob Bryan ton, and his re- 
vels with the club at Ballymahon, having been much 
in the way of his theological studies; others attribute 
his rejection to reports of his college irregularities, 
which the bishop had received from his old tyrant 
Wilder ; but those who look into the matter with more 
knowing eyes, pronounce the scarlet breeches to have 
been the fundamental objection. "My friends," says 
Goldsmith, speaking through his humorous represen- 
tative, the "Man in Black," — "my friends were now 
perfectly satisfied I was undone ; and yet they thought 
it a pity for one that had not the least harm in him, 
and was so very good-natured." His uncle Contarine, 
however, still remained unwavering in his kindness, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 31 

though much less sanguine in his expectations. He 
now looked round for a humbler sphere of action, and 
through his influence and exertions Oliver was re- 
ceived as tutor in the family of a Mr. Flinn, a gentle- 
man of the neighborhood. The situation was appar- 
ently respectable, — he had his seat at the table and 
joined the family in their domestic recreations and 
their evening game at cards. There was a servility, 
however, in his position, which was not to his taste; 
nor did his deference for the family increase upon 
familiar intercourse. He charged a member of it with 
unfair play at cards. A violent altercation ensued, 
which ended in his throwing up his situation as tutor. 
On being paid off he found himself in possession 
of an unheard-of amount of money. His wandering 
propensity and his desire to see the world were in- 
stantly in the ascendency. Without communicating 
his plans or intentions to his friends, he procured a 
good horse, and, with thirty pounds in his pocket, 
made his second sally forth into the world. 

The worthy niece and housekeeper of the hero of 
La Mancha l could not have been more surprised and 
dismayed at one of the Don's clandestine expeditions 
than were the mother and friends of Goldsmith, when 
they heard of his mysterious departure. Weeks 
elasped, and nothing was seen or heard of him. It 
was feared that he had left the country on one of his 
wandering freaks, and his poor mother was reduced 
almost to despair, when one day he arrived at her 
door almost as forlorn in plight as the prodigal son. 
Of his thirty pounds not a shilling was left; and, in- 
stead of the goodly steed on which he had issued forth 

1 Don Quixote de la Mancha, the hero of Cervantes' s story of 
that name. 



32 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

on his errantry, he was mounted on a sorry little 
pony, which he had nicknamed Fiddle-back. As soon 
as his mother was well assured of his safety, she rated 
him soundly for his inconsiderate conduct. His bro- 
thers and sisters, who were tenderly attached to him, 
interfered, and succeeded in mollifying her ire; and 
whatever lurking anger the good dame might have, 
was no doubt effectually vanquished by the following 
whimsical narrative which he drew up at his brother's 
house, and dispatched to her : — 

"My dear mother, if you will sit down and calmly 
listen to what I say, you shall be fully resolved in 
every one of those many questions you have asked me. 
I went to Cork and converted my horse, which you 
prize so much higher than Fiddle-back, into cash, 
took my passage in a ship bound for America, and, at 
the same time, paid the captain for my freight and 
all the other expenses of my voyage. But it so hap- 
pened that the wind did not answer for three weeks; 
and you know, mother, that I could not command the 
elements. My misfortune was, that, when the wind 
served, I happened to be with a party in the country, 
and my friend the captain never inquired after me, 
but set sail with as much indifference as if I had been 
on board. The remainder of my time I employed in 
the city and its environs, viewing everything curious, 
and you know no one can starve while he has money 
in his pocket. 

"Reduced, however, to my last two guineas, I be- 
gan to think of my dear mother and friends whom I 
had left behind me, and so bought that generous beast, 
Fiddle-back, and bade adieu to Cork with only five 
shillings in my pocket. This, to be sure, was but a 
scanty allowance for man and horse towards a journey 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 33 

of above a hundred miles; but I did not despair, for 
I knew I must find friends on the road. 

"I recollected particularly an old and faithful ac- 
quaintance I made at college, who had often and ear- 
nestly pressed me to spend a summer with him, and 
he lived but eight miles from Cork. This circum- 
stance of vicinity he would expatiate on to me with 
peculiar emphasis. ' We shall, ' says he, 4 enjoy the 
delights of both city and country, and you shall com- 
mand my stable and my purse.' 

"However, upon the way I met a poor woman all 
in tears, who told me her husband had been arrested 
for a debt he was not able to pay, and that his eight 
children must now starve, bereaved as they were of 
his industry, which had been their only support. I 
thought myself at home, being not far from my good 
friend's house, and therefore parted with a moiety of 
all my store ; and pray, mother, ought I not to have 
given her the other half-crown, for what she got would 
be of little use to her? However, I soon arrived at 
the mansion of my affectionate friend, guarded by 
the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who flew at me and 
would have torn me to pieces but for the assistance of 
a woman, whose countenance was not less grim than 
that of the dog ; yet she with great humanity relieved 
me from the jaws of this Cerberus, 1 and was prevailed 
on to carry up my name to her master. 

"Without suffering me to wait long, my old friend, 
who was then recovering from a severe fit of sickness, 
came down in his nightcap, nightgown, and slippers, 
and embraced me with the most cordial welcome, 
showed me in, and, after giving me a history of his 
indisposition, assured me that he considered himself 
1 The three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to Hades. 



34 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

peculiarly fortunate in having under his roof the man 
he most loved on earth, and whose stay with him must, 
above all things, contribute to perfect his recovery. 
I now repented sorely I had not given the poor woman 
the other half-crown, as I thought all my bills of 
humanity would be punctually answered by this wor- 
thy man. I revealed to him my whole soul ; I opened 
to him all my distresses ; and freely owned that I had 
but one half-crown in my pocket; but that now, like 
a ship after weathering out the storm, I considered 
myself secure in a safe and hospitable harbor. He 
made no answer, but walked about the room, rubbing 
his hands as one in deep study. This I imputed to 
the sympathetic feelings of a tender heart, which in- 
creased my esteem for him, and, as that increased, I 
gave the most favorable interpretation to his silence. 
I construed it into delicacy of sentiment, as if he 
dreaded to wound my pride by expressing his commis- 
eration in words, leaving his generous conduct to 
speak for itself. 

"It now approached six o'clock in the evening; and 
as I had eaten no breakfast, and as my spirits were 
raised, my appetite for dinner grew uncommonly 
keen. At length the old woman came into the room 
with two plates, one spoon, and a dirty cloth, which 
she laid upon the table. This appearance, without 
increasing my spirits, did not diminish my appetite. 
My protectress soon returned with a small bowl of 
sago, a small porringer of sour milk, a loaf of stale 
brown bread, and the heel of an old cheese all over 
crawling with mites. My friend apologized that his 
illness obliged him to live on slops, and that better 
fare was not in the house; observing, at the same 
time, that a milk diet was certainly the most health- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 35 

ful; and at eight o'clock he again recommended a 
regular life, declaring that for his part he would lie 
down with the lamb and rise with the lark. 1 My 
hunger was at this time so exceedingly sharp that I 
wished for another slice of the loaf, but was obliged 
to go to bed without even that refreshment. 

" This lenten 2 entertainment I had received made 
me resolve to depart as soon as possible ; accordingly, 
next morning, when I spoke of going, he did not op- 
pose my resolution; he rather commended my design, 
adding some very sage counsel upon the occasion. 
4 To be sure, ' said he, i the longer you stay away from 
your mother, the more you will grieve her and your 
other friends; and possibly they are already afflicted 
at hearing of this foolish expedition you have made.' 
Notwithstanding all this, and without any hope of 
softening such a sordid heart, I again renewed the 
tale of my distress, and asking i how he thought I 
could travel above a hundred miles upon one half- 
crown? ' I begged to borrow a single guinea, which 
I assured him should be repaid with thanks. ' And 
you know, sir,' said I, ' it is no more than I have 
done for you. ' To which he firmly answered, ' Why, 
look you, Mr. Goldsmith, that is neither here nor 
there. I have paid you all you ever lent me, and this 
sickness of mine has left me bare of cash. But I have 
bethought myself of a conveyance for you ; sell your 
horse, and I will furnish you a much better one to 
ride on.' I readily grasped at his proposal, and 
begged to see the nag ; on which he led me to his bed- 

1 " To rise with the lark, and go to bed with the lamb " is 
an expression found, according to Bartlett, in Nicholas Breton's 
Court and Country (1618). 

2 Meagre. 



36 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

chamber, and from under the bed he pulled out a 
stout oak stick. ' Here he is, ' said he ; ' take this in 
your hand, and it will carry you to your mother's 
with more safety than such a horse as you ride. ' I 
was in doubt, when I got it into my hand, whether I 
should not, in the first place, apply it to his pate; 
but a rap at the street-door made the wretch fly to it, 
and when I returned to the parlor he introduced me, 
as if nothing of the kind had happened, to the gentle- 
man who entered, as Mr. Goldsmith, his most inge- 
nious and worthy friend, of whom he had so often 
heard him speak with rapture. I could scarcely com- 
pose myself; and must have betrayed indignation in 
my mien to the stranger, who was a counsellor-at-law 
in the neighborhood, a man of engaging aspect and 
polite address. 

"After spending an hour, he asked my friend and 
me to dine with him at his house. This 1 declined 
at first, as I wished to have no farther communication 
with my hospitable friend; but at the solicitation of 
both I at last consented, determined as I was by two 
motives: one, that I was prejudiced in favor of the 
looks and manner of the counsellor; and the other, 
that I stood in need of a comfortable dinner. And 
there, indeed, I found everything that I could wish, 
abundance without profusion, and elegance without 
affectation. In the evening, when my old friend, 
who had eaten very plentifully at his neighbor's table 
but talked again of lying down with the lamb, made 
a motion to me for retiring, our generous host re- 
quested I should take a bed with him, upon which I 
plainly told my old friend that he might go home and 
take care of the horse he had given me, but that I 
should never reenter his doors. He went away with 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 37 

a laugh, leaving me to add this to the other little 
things the counsellor already knew of his plausible 
neighbor. 

"And now, my dear mother, I found sufficient to 
reconcile me to all my follies ; for here I spent three 
whole days. The counsellor had two sweet girls to 
his daughters, who played enchantingly on the harpsi- 
chord ; : and yet it was but a melancholy pleasure I 
felt the first time I heard them ; for that being the 
first time also that either of them had touched the in- 
strument since their mother's death, I saw the tears 
in silence trickle down their father's cheeks. I every 
day endeavored to go away, but every day was pressed 
and obliged to stay. On my going, the counsellor 
offered me his purse, with a horse and servant to con- 
vey me home; but the latter I declined, and only 
took a guinea to bear my necessary expenses on the 
road. 

"Oliver Goldsmith. 

" To Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, Ballymahon." 

Such is the story given by the poet-errant 2 of this 
his second sally in quest of adventures. AVe cannot 
but think it was here and there touched up a little with 
the fanciful pen of the future essayist, with a view to 
amuse his mother and soften her vexation ; but even in 
these respects it is valuable as showing the early play 
of his humor, and his happy knack of extracting 
sweets from that worldly experience which to others 
yields nothing but bitterness. 

1 A stringed instrument, slightly resembling a piano. 

2 Wandering; a poet in search of adventure. 



38 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Sallies forth as a Law Student. — Stumbles at the Outset. — 
Cousin Jane and the Valentine. — A Family Oracle. — Sallies 
forth as a Student of Medicine. — Hocus-Pocus of a Board- 
ing-House. — Transformations of a Leg of Mutton. — The 
Mock Ghost. — Sketches of Scotland. — Trials of Toadyism. 
— A Poet's Purse for a Continental Tour. 

A new consultation was held among Goldsmith's 
friends as to his future course, and it was determined 
he should try the law. His uncle Contarine agreed 
to advance the necessary funds, and actually fur- 
nished him with fifty pounds, with which he set off 
for London, to enter on his studies at the Temple. 
Unfortunately, he fell in company at Dublin with a 
Eoscommon acquaintance, one whose wits had been 
sharpened about town, who beguiled him into a gam- 
bling house, and soon left him as penniless as when 
he bestrode the redoubtable Fiddle-back. 

He was so ashamed of this fresh instance of gross 
heedlessness and imprudence, that he remained some 
time in Dublin without communicating to his friends 
his destitute condition. They heard of it, however, 
and he was invited back to the country, and indul- 
gently forgiven by his generous uncle, but less readily 
by his mother, who was mortified and disheartened 
at seeing all her early hopes of him so repeatedly 
blighted. His brother Henry, too, began to lose pa- 
tience at these successive failures, resulting from 
thoughtless indiscretion; and a quarrel took place, 
which for some time interrupted their usually affec- 
tionate intercourse. 

The only home where poor erring Goldsmith still 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 39 

received a welcome, was the parsonage of his affec- 
tionate, forgiving uncle. Here he used to talk ':>f lit- 
erature with the good simple-hearted man. and delight 
him and his daughter with his verses. Jane, his early 
playmate, was now the woman grown: their inter- 
course was of a more intellectual kind than formerly; 
they discoursed of poetry and music ; she played on 
the harpsichord, and he accompanied her with his 
flute. The music may not have been very artistic, as 
he never performed but by ear; it had probably as 
much merit as the poetry, which, if we may judge by 
the following specimen, was as yet but juvenile. 

TO A YOUNG LADY OX VALENTINE'S DAY. 

WITH THE DRAWING OF A HEART. 

With submission at your shrine, 
Comes a heart your Valentine; 
From the side where once it grew, 
See it panting flies to you. 
Take it. fair one, to your breast, 
Soothe the fluttering thing to rest; 
Let the gentle, spotless toy 
Be your sweetest, greatest joy; 
Every night when wrapp'd in sleep, 
Next your heart the conquest keep; 
Or if dreams your fancy move, 
Hear it whisper me and love; 
Then in pity to the swain, 
Who must heartless else remain, 
Soft as gentle dewy show'rs, 
Slow descend on April flow'rs; 
Soft as gentle rivlets glide, 
Steal unnoticed to my side ; 
If the gem you have to spare, 
Take your own and place it there. 



40 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

If this valentine was intended for the fair Jane, 
and expressive of a tender sentiment indulged by the 
stripling poet, it was unavailing; as not long after- 
wards she was married to a Mr. Lawder. We trust, 
however, it was but a poetical passion of that tran- 
sient kind which grows up in idleness and exhales 
itself in rhyme. While Oliver was thus piping and 
poetizing at the parsonage, his uncle Contarine re- 
ceived a visit from Dean Goldsmith of Cloyne, 1 — a 
kind of magnate in the wide but improvident family 
connection, throughout which his word was law and 
almost gospel. This august dignitary was pleased to 
discover signs of talent in Oliver, and suggested that, 
as he had attempted divinity and law without success, 
he should now try physic. The advice came from too 
important a source to be disregarded, and it was de- 
termined to send him to Edinburgh to commence his 
studies. The Dean having given the advice, added 
to it, we trust, his blessing, but no money ; that was 
furnished from the scantier purses of Goldsmith's 
brother, his sister (Mrs. Hodson), and his ever-ready 
uncle, Contarine. 

It was in the autumn of 1752 that Goldsmith ar- 
rived in Edinburgh. His outset in that city came 
near adding to the list of his indiscretions and dis- 
asters. Having taken lodgings at haphazard, he left 
his trunk there, containing all his worldly effects, 
and sallied forth to see the town. After sauntering 
about the streets until a late hour, he thought of re- 
turning home, when, to his confusion, he found he 
had not acquainted himself with the name either of 
his landlady or of the street in which she lived. For- 

1 An episcopal see in the county of Cork. Berkeley was Bishop 
of Cloyne at this time. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 41 

tunately. in the height of his whimsical perplexity, he 
met the eawdy. or porter, who had carried his trunk. 
and who now served him as a guide. 

He did not remain long in the lodgings in w 
he had put up. The hostess was too adroit at that 
hocus-pocus : of the table which often is practised in 
cheap boarding-houses. No one could conjure a sin- 
gle joint through a greater variety of forms. A loin 
of mutton, according to Goldsmith's account, would 
serve him and two fellow-students a whole week. "A 
brandered 2 chop was served up one day. a fried steak 
another, collops 3 with onion sauce a third, and so on 
until the fleshy parts were qui: 7 -1. when 

finally a dish of broth was manufactured from the 
bones on the seventh day, and the landlady resi 
from her labors." Goldsmith had a good-humored 
mode of taking things, and for a short time amused 
himself with the shifts and expedients of his landlady, 
which struck him in a ludicrous manner: he soon, 
however, fell in with fellow-students from his own 
country, whom he joined at more eligible quarters. 

He now attended medical lectures, and attached 
himself to an association of students called the Medi- 
cal Society. He set out. as usual, with the best in- 
tentions, but, as usual, soon fell into idle, convivial, 
ightless habits. Edinburgh was indeed a place 
of sore trial for one of his temperament. Convivial 
-ings were all the vogue, and the tavern was the 
universal rallying - place of good-fellowship. And 
then Goldsmith's intimacies lay chiefly among the 
Irish students, who were alwa; - for a wild freak 

and frolic. Among them he was a prime favorite and 

1 Trickery, such as is used by magicians. 

2 Broiled. Minced meat of some sort. 



42 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

somewhat of a leader, from his exuberance of spirits, 
his vein of humor, and his talent at singing an Irish 
song and telling an Irish story. 

His usual carelessness in money matters attended 
him. Though his supplies from home were scanty 
and irregular, he never could bring himself into habits 
of prudence and economy, — often he was stripped 
of all his present finances at play; often he lavished 
them away in fits of unguarded charity or generosity. 
Sometimes among his boon companions he assumed a 
ludicrous swagger in money matters, which no one 
afterward was more ready than himself to laugh at. 
At a convivial meeting with a number of his fellow - 
students he suddenly proposed to draw lots with any 
one present which of the two should treat the whole 
party to the play. The moment the proposition had 
bolted from his lips, his heart was in his throat. 
"To my great though secret joy," said he, "they all 
declined the challenge. Had it been accepted, and 
had I proved the loser, a part of my wardrobe must 
have been pledged in order to raise the money." 

At another of these meetings there was an earnest 
dispute on the question of ghosts, some being firm be- 
lievers in the possibility of departed spirits returning 
to visit their friends and familiar haunts. One of the 
disputants set sail the next day for London, but the 
vessel put back through stress of weather. His re- 
turn was unknown except to one of the believers in 
ghosts, who concerted with him a trick to be played 
off on the opposite party. In the evening, at a meet- 
ing of the students, the discussion was renewed ; and 
one of the most strenuous opposers of ghosts was asked 
whether he considered himself proof against ocular 
demonstration. He persisted in his scoffing. Some 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 43 

solemn process of conjuration was performed, and the 
comrade supposed to be on his way to London made 
his appearance. The effect was fatal. The unbe- 
liever fainted at the sight, and ultimately went mad. 
We have no account of what share Goldsmith took in 
this transaction, at which he was present. 

The following letter to his friend Bryanton contains 
some of Goldsmith's impressions concerning Scotland 
and its inhabitants, and gives indications of that hu- 
mor which characterized some of his later writings. 

ROBERT BRYANTON, AT BALLYMAHON, IRELAND. 

Edinburgh, September 26th, 1753. 
My dear Bob, — How many good excuses (and 
you know I was ever good at an excuse) might I call 
up to vindicate my past shameful silence. I might 
tell how I wrote a long letter on my first coming 
hither, and seem vastly angry at my not receiving an 
answer; I might allege that business (with business 
you know I was always pestered) had never given me 
time to finger a pen. But I suppress those and 
twenty more as plausible, and as easily invented, since 
they might be attended with a slight inconvenience 
of being known to be lies. Let me then speak truth. 
An hereditary indolence (I have it from the mother's 
side) has hitherto prevented my writing to you, and 
still prevents my writing at least twenty -five letters 
more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turnspit- 
dog l gets up into his wheel with more reluctance than 
I sit down to write ; yet no dog ever loved the roast 
meat he turns better than I do him I now address. 

1 A small dog with a small body and short legs. Formerly it 
was used to work a treadmill-wheel, by which a spit was turned. 
Century Dictionary. 



44 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Yet what shall I say now I am entered ? Shall I 
tire you with a description of this unfruitful country ; 
where I must lead you over their hills all brown with 
heath, or their valleys scarcely able to feed a rabbit? 
Man alone seems to be the only creature who has ar- 
rived to the natural size in this poor soil. Every part 
of the country presents the same dismal landscape. 
No grove nor brook lend their music to cheer the 
stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their pov- 
erty. Yet with all these disadvantages to call him 
down to humility, a Scotchman is one of the proud- 
est things alive. The poor have pride ever ready to 
relieve them. If mankind should happen to despise 
them, they are masters of their own admiration ; and 
that they can plentifully bestow upon themselves. 

From their pride and poverty, as I take it, results 
one advantage this country enjoys; namely, the gen- 
tlemen here are much better bred than among us. 
No such character here as our fox-hunters; and they 
have expressed great surprise when I informed them 
that some men in Ireland, of one thousand pounds a 
year, spend their whole lives in running after a hare, 
and drinking to be drunk. Truly, if such a being, 
equipped in his hunting-dress, came among a circle of 
Scotch gentry, they would behold him with the same 
astonishment that a countryman does King George 
on horseback. 

The men here have generally high cheek bones, 
and are lean and swarthy, fond of action, dancing in 
particular. Now that I have mentioned dancing, let 
me say something of their balls, which are very fre- 
quent here. When a stranger enters the dancing- 
hall, he sees one end of the room taken up by the 
ladies, who sit dismally in a group by themselves; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 45 

in the other end stand their pensive partners that are 
to be, — but no more intercourse between the sexes 
than there is between two countries at war. The 
ladies indeed may ogle, and the gentlemen sigh ; but 
an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. At 
length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady directress, or 
intendant, or what you will, pitches upon a lady and 
gentleman to walk a minuet; which they perform 
with a formality that approaches to despondence. 
After five or six couple have thus walked the gauntlet, 
all stand up to country dances ; each gentleman fur- 
nished with a partner from the aforesaid lady direct- 
ress ; so they dance much, say nothing, and thus con- 
cludes our assembly. I told a Scotch gentleman that 
such profound silence resembled the ancient procession 
of the Roman matrons in honor of Ceres ; 2 and the 
Scotch gentleman told me (and faith I believe he was 
right) that I was a very great pedant for my pains. 

Now I am come to the ladies; and to show that I 
love Scotland, and everything that belongs to so 
charming a country, I insist on it, and will give him 
leave to break my head that denies it, that the 
Scotch ladies are ten thousand times finer and hand- 
somer than the Irish. To be sure, now, I see your 
sisters Betty and Peggy vastly surprised at my par- 
tiality; but tell them flatly, I don't value them, — 
or their fine skins, or eyes, or good sense, or — a 

1 Ceres (Greek Demeter), a Roman goddess, was protectress 
of agriculture and of all fruits. Festivals in her honor, called 
Cerealia, occurred in April and in August. The latter celebra- 
tion was a thanksgiving feast observed only by women, dressed 
in white, bearing to Ceres the first-fruits of the harvest. They 
prepared for the procession by fasting and other forms of puri- 
fication. See Ovid, Metamorphoses, x. 



46 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

potato, — for I say, and will maintain it ; and as a 
convincing proof (I am in a great passion) of what I 
assert, the Scotch ladies say it themselves. But to 
be less serious, where will you find a language so 
prettily become a pretty mouth as the broad Scotch? 
And the women here speak it in its highest purity; 
for instance, teach one of your young ladies at home 
to pronounce the u Whoar wull I gong?" with a be- 
coming widening of mouth, and I '11 lay my life 
they '11 wound every hearer. 

We have no such character here as a coquette, but 
alas! how many envious prudes! Some days ago I 
walked into my Lord Kilcoubry's (don't be surprised, 
my lord is but a glover), 1 when the Duchess of Ham- 
ilton 2 (that fair who sacrificed her beauty to her am- 
bition, and her inward peace to a title and gilt equi- 
page) passed by in her chariot ; her battered husband, 
or more properly the guardian of her charms, sat by 
her side. Straight envy began, in the shape of no 
less than three ladies who sat with me, to find faults 
in her faultess form. "For my part," says the first, 
"I think what I always thought, that the Duchess 
has too much of the red in her complexion." "Madam, 
I am of your opinion," says the second; "I think her 
face has a palish cast too much on the delicate order." 

1 William Maclellan, who claimed the title, and whose son 
succeeded in establishing the claim in 1773. The father is said 
to have voted at the election of the sixteen peers for Scotland ; 
and to have sold gloves in the lobby at this and other public 
assemblages. 

2 Elizabeth Gunning (1734-1790) was married clandestinely 
to the Duke of Hamilton. She and her sisters were famous for 
their beauty. Goldsmith's humor will be appreciated if we note 
that when she was presented, the " noble mob in the drawing- 
room clambered on chairs and tables to look at her." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 47 

"And, let me tell you," added the third lady, whose 
mouth was puckered up to the size of an issue, 1 "that 
the Duchess has fine lips, but she wants a mouth." 
At this every lady drew up her mouth as if going to 
pronounce the letter P. 

But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to ridi- 
cule women with whom I have scarcely any corre- 
spondence ! There are, 't is certain, handsome women 
here ; and 't is certain they have handsome men to 
keep them company. An ugly and poor man is so- 
ciety only for himself; and such society the world 
lets me enjoy in great abundance. Fortune has given 
you circumstances, and Nature a person to look 
charming in the eyes of the fair. Nor do I envy my 
dear Bob such blessings, while I may sit down and 
laugh at the world and at myself — the most ridicu- 
lous object in it. But you see I am grown downright 
splenetic, and perhaps the fit may continue till I re- 
ceive an answer to this. I know you cannot send me 
much news from Ballymahon, but such as it is, send 
it all; everything you send will be agreeable to me. 

Has George Conway put up a sign yet; or John 
Binley left off drinking drams; or Tom Allen got 
a new wig? But I leave you to your own choice what 
to write. While I live, know you have a true friend 
in yours, etc., etc., etc., 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

P. S. — Give my sincere respects (not compliments, 
do you mind) to your agreeable family, and give my 
service to my mother, if you see her ; for, as you ex- 
press it in Ireland, I have a sneaking kindness for 

her still. Direct me, , Student in Physic, in 

Edinburgh. 

1 A sore made as a counter irritant; a medical term. 



48 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Nothing worthy of preservation appeared from his 
pen during his residence in Edinburgh; and indeed 
his poetical powers, highly as they had been estimated 
by his friends, had not as yet produced anything of 
superior merit. He made on one occasion a month's 
excursion to the Highlands. "I set out the first day 
on foot," says he, in a letter to his uncle Contarine, 
"but an ill-natured corn I have on my toe has for the 
future prevented that cheap mode of travelling; so the 
second day I hired a horse, about the size of a ram, 
and he walked away (trot he could not) as pensive as 
his master." 

During his residence in Scotland his convivial tal- 
ents gained him at one time attentions in a high quar- 
ter, which, however, he had the good sense to appre- 
ciate correctly. "I have spent," says he, in one of 
his letters, "more than a fortnight every second day 
at the Duke of Hamilton's; but it seems they like me 
more as a jester than as a companion, so I disdained 
so servile an employment as unworthy my calling as 
a physician." Here we again find the origin of an- 
other passage in his autobiography, under the charac- 
ter of the "Man in Black," wherein that worthy fig- 
ures as a flatterer to a great man. "At first," says 
he, "I was surprised that the situation of a flatterer 
at a great man's table could be thought disagreeable; 
there was no great trouble in listening attentively 
when his lordship spoke, and laughing when he looked 
round for applause. This, even good manners might 
have obliged me to perform. I found, however, too 
soon, his lordship was a greater dunce than myself, 
and from that moment flattery was at an end. I now 
rather aimed at setting him right than at receiving 
his absurdities with submission: to flatter those we 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 49 

do not know is an easy task ; but to flatter our inti- 
mate acquaintances, all whose foibles are strongly in 
our eyes, is drudgery insupportable. Every time I 
now opened my lips in praise, my falsehood went to 
my conscience; his lordship soon perceived me to be 
very unfit for his service : I was therefore discharged, 
my patron at the same time being graciously pleased 
to observe that he believed I was tolerably good-na- 
tured and had not the least harm in me." 

After spending two winters at Edinburgh, Gold- 
smith prepared to finish his medical studies on the 
Continent, for which his uncle Contarine agreed to 
furnish the funds. "I intend," said he, in a letter 
to his uncle, "to visit Paris, where the great Far- 
heim, Petit, and Du Hamel de Monceau instruct their 
pupils in all the branches of medicine. They speak 
French, 1 and consequently I shall have much the ad- 
vantage of most of my countrymen, as 1 am perfectly 
acquainted with that language, and few who leave 
Ireland are so. I shall spend the spring and sum- 
mer in Paris, and the beginning of next winter go to 
Ley den. The great Albinus is still alive there, and 
't will be proper to go, though only to have it said 
that we have studied in so famous a university. 

"As I shall not have another opportunity of receiv- 
ing money from your bounty till my return to Ireland, 
so I have drawn for the last sum that I hope I shall 
ever trouble you for; 'tis <£20. And now, dear sir, 
let me here acknowledge the humility of the sta- 
tion in which you found me ; let me tell how I was 
despised by most, and hateful to myself. Poverty, 
hopeless poverty, was my lot, and Melancholy was 
beginning to make me her own, when you — But I 
1 Latin was still used by many University lecturers. 



50 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

stop here, to inquire how your health goes on ? How 
does my cousin Jenny, and has she recovered her late' 
complaint? How does my poor Jack Goldsmith? I 
fear his disorder is of such a nature as he won't easily 
recover. I wish, my dear sir, you would make me 
happy by another letter before I go abroad, for there 
I shall hardly hear from you. . . . Give my — how 
shall I express it ? — give my earnest love to Mr. and 
Mrs. Lawder." 

Mrs. Lawder was Jane, his early playmate, the 
object of his valentine, his first poetical inspiration. 
She had been for some time married. 

Medical instruction, it will be perceived, was the 
ostensible motive for this visit to the Continent, but 
the real one, in all probability, was his long-cherished 
desire to see foreign parts. This, however, he would 
not acknowledge even to himself, but sought to recon- 
cile his roving propensities with some grand moral 
purpose. "I esteem the traveller who instructs the 
heart," says he, in one of his subsequent writings, 
"but I despise him who only indulges the imagina- 
tion. A man who leaves home to mend himself and 
others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from coun- 
try to country, guided by the blind impulse of curi- 
osity, is only a vagabond." 1 He, of course, was to 
travel as a philosopher, and in truth his outfits for 
a Continental tour were in character. "1 shall carry 
just <£33 to France," said he, "with good store of 
clothes, shirts, etc., and that with economy will suf- 
fice." He forgot to make mention of his flute, which 
it will be found had occasionally to come in play 
when economy could not replenish his purse, nor phi- 
losophy find him a supper. Thus slenderly provided 
1 Citizen of the World, letter vii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 51 

with money, prudence, or experience, and almost as 
slightly guarded against "hard knocks" as the hero 
of La Mancha, whose headpiece was half iron, half 
pasteboard, he made his final sally forth upon the 
world ; hoping all things ; believing all things : little 
anticipating the checkered ills in store for him ; little 
thinking when he penned his valedictory letter to his 
good uncle Contarine, that he was never to see him 
more ; never to return after all his wandering to the 
friend of his infancy : never to revisit his early and 
fondly remembered haunts at "sweet Lissoy " and 
Ballymahon. 

CHAPTER V. 

The Agreeable Fellow-Passengers. — Risks from Friends picked 
up by the Wayside. — Sketches of Holland and the Dutch. — 
Shifts while a Poor Student at Leyden. — The Tulip Specula- 
tion. — The Provident Flute. — Sojourn at Paris. — Sketch 
of Voltaire. — Travelling Shifts of a Philosophic Vagabond. 

His usual indiscretion attended Goldsmith at the 
very outset of his foreign enterprise. He had in- 
tended to take shipping at Leith for Holland; but on 
arriving at that port, he found a ship about to sail for 
Bordeaux, with six agreeable passengers, whose ac- 
quaintance he had probably made at the inn. He was 
not a man to resist a sudden impulse; so, instead of 
embarking for Holland, he found himself ploughing 
the seas on his way to the other side of the Continent. 
Scarcely had the ship been two days at sea, when she 
was driven by stress of weather to Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne. Here "of course" Goldsmith and his agree- 
able fellow-passengers found it expedient to go on 
shore and "refresh themselves after the fatigues of 



52 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the voyage." "Of course" they frolicked and made 
merry until a late hour in the evening, when, in the 
midst of their hilarity, the door was burst open, and 
a sergeant and twelve grenadiers entered with fixed 
bayonets, and took the whole convivial party prisoners. 

It seems that the agreeable companions with whom 
our greenhorn had struck up such a sudden intimacy 
were Scotchmen in the French service, who had been 
in Scotland enlisting recruits for the French army. 

In vain Goldsmith protested his innocence; he 
was marched off with his fellow-travellers to prison, 
whence he with difficulty obtained his release at the 
end of a fortnight. With his customary facility, 
however, at palliating his misadventures, he found 
everything turn out for the best. His imprisonment 
saved his life, for during his detention the ship pro- 
ceeded on her voyage, but was wrecked at the mouth 
of the Garonne, and all on board perished. 

Goldsmith's second embarkation was for Holland 
direct, and in nine days he arrived at Rotterdam, 
whence he proceeded, without any more deviations, to 
Leyden. He gives a whimsical picture, in one of his 
letters, of the appearance of the Hollanders. "The 
modern Dutchman is quite a different creature from 
him of former times: he in everything imitates a 
Frenchman but in his easy, disengaged air. He is 
vastly ceremonious, and is, perhaps, exactly what a 
Frenchman might have been in the reign of Louis 
XIV. 1 Such are the better bred. But the down- 
right Hollander is one of the oddest figures in nature. 
Upon a lank head of hair he wears a half-cocked nar- 
row hat, laced with black ribband; no coat, but seven 

1 King of France, 1643-1715. No other European monarch 
has ever reigned so long. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 53 

waistcoats and nine pair of breeches, so that his hips 
reach up almost to his armpits. This well-clothed 
vegetable is now fit to see company or make love. 
But what a pleasing creature is the object of his 
appetite ! why. she wears a large fur cap, with a deal 
of Flanders lace ; and for every pair of breeches he 
carries, she puts on two petticoats. 

" A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic 
admirer but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every 
woman carries in her hand a stove of coals, which, 
when she sits, she snugs under her petticoats, and at 
this chimney, dozing Strephon l lights his pipe." 

In the same letter he contrasts Scotland and Hol- 
land. "There, hills and rocks intercept every pro- 
spect; here, it is all a continued plain. There, you 
might see a well-dressed Duchess issuing from a dirty 
close, 2 and here, a dirty Dutchman inhabiting a pal- 
ace. The Scotch may be compared to a tulip planted 
in dung; but I can never see a Dutchman in his own 
house, but I think of a magnificent Egyptian temple 
dedicated to an ox." 

The country itself awakened his admiration. '"No- 
thing," said he, "can equal its beauty: wherever I 
turn my eyes fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, 
grottos, vistas present themselves ; but when you en- 
ter their towns, you are charmed beyond description. 
No misery is to be seen here : every one is usefully 
employed." And again, in his noble description in 
"The Traveller:" — 

" To men of other minds my fancy flies, 
Imbosom'd in the deep where Holland lies. 

1 A shepherd in Sidney's Arcadia; the conventional name for 
a lover. 

2 A passage leading from the street to a house. 



54 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Methinks her patient sons before me stand, 
Where the broad ocean leans against the land, 
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, 
Lifts the tall rampire's artificial pride. 1 
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, 
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow; 
Spreads its long arms amid the watery roar, 
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore, 
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile 
Sees an amphibious world before him smile: 
The slow canal, the yellow blossom'd vale, 
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, 
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, 
A new creation rescued from his reign." 

He remained about a year at Ley den, attending 
the lectures of Gaubius on chemistry and Albinus on 
anatomy; though his studies are said to have been 
miscellaneous, and directed to literature rather than 
science. The thirty-three pounds with which he had 
set out on his travels were soon consumed, and he was 
put to many a shift to meet his expenses until his pre- 
carious remittances should arrive. He had a good 
friend on these occasions in a fellow-student and 
countryman, named Ellis, who afterwards rose to 
eminence as a physician. He used frequently to loan 
small sums to Goldsmith, which were always scrupu- 
lously paid. Ellis discovered the innate merits of the 
poor awkward student, and used to declare in after 
life that "it was a common remark in Leyden, that 
in all the peculiarities of Goldsmith, an elevation of 
mind was to be noted ; a philosophical tone and man- 
ner; the feelings of a gentleman, and the language 
and information of a scholar." 

Sometimes, in his emergencies, Goldsmith under- 
took to teach the English language. It is true he 
1 The dikes of Holland. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 55 

was ignorant of the Dutch, but he had a smattering 
of the French, picked up among the Irish priests at 
Bally mahon. He depicts his whimsical embarrass- 
ment in this respect, in his account in the "Vicar of 
Wakefield " of the philosophical vagabond, 1 who went 
to Holland to teach the natives English, without 
knowing a word of their own language. Sometimes, 
when sorely pinched, and sometimes, perhaps, when 
flush, he resorted to the gambling-tables, which in 
those days abounded in Holland. His good friend 
Ellis repeatedly warned him against this unfortunate 
propensity, but in vain. It brought its own cure, or 
rather its own punishment, by stripping him of every 
shilling. 

Ellis once more stepped in to his relief with a true 
Irishman's generosity, but with more considerateness 
than generally characterizes an Irishman, for he only 
granted pecuniary aid on condition of his quitting 
the sphere of danger. Goldsmith gladly consented 
to leave Holland, being anxious to visit other parts. 
He intended to proceed to Paris and pursue his 
studies there, and was furnished by his friend with 
money for the journey. Unluckily, he rambled into 
the garden of a florist just before quitting Leyden. 
The tulip-mania 2 was still prevalent in Holland, and 
some species of that splendid flower brought immense 
prices. In wandering through the garden, Goldsmith 

1 "The History of a Philosophic Vagabond," The Vicar of 
Wakefield, chapter xx. 

2 Tulipomania, a most extraordinary craze for tulips, which 
arose in the Netherlands about 1634, as a result of which enor- 
mous sums were spent in the propagation of rare species, and 
fortunes were made and lost, speculating in tulip bulbs. Finally 
the government was forced to interfere and put a stop to the 
speculation. 



56 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

recollected that his uncle Contarine was a tulip-fan- 
cier. The thought suddenly struck him that here was 
an opportunity of testifying, in a delicate manner, 
his sense of that generous uncle's past kindnesses. 
In an instant his hand was in his pocket; a number 
of choice and costly tulip-roots were purchased and 
packed up for Mr. Contarine; and it was not until 
he had paid for them that he bethought himself that 
he had spent all the money borrowed for his travel- 
ling expenses. Too proud, however, to give up his 
journey, and too shamefaced to make another appeal 
to his friend's liberality, he determined to travel on 
foot, and depend upon chance and good luck for the 
means of getting forward ; and it is said that he act- 
ually set off on a tour of the Continent, in February, 
1755, with but one spare shirt, a flute, and a single 
guinea. 

"Blessed," says one of his biographers, "with a 
good constitution, an adventurous spirit, and with 
that thoughtless, or, perhaps, happy disposition which 
takes no care for to-morrow, he continued his travels 
for a long time in spite of innumerable privations." 
In his amusing narrative of the adventures of a " Phi- 
losophic Vagabond" in the "Vicar of Wakefield," 
we find shadowed out the expedients he pursued. "I 
had some knowledge of music, with a tolerable voice; 
I now turned what was once my amusement into a 
present means of subsistence. I passed among the 
harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the 
French as were poor enough to be very merry, for I 
ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. 
Whenever I approached a peasant's house towards 
nightfall, I played one of my merriest tunes, and that 
procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 57 

the next day; but in truth I must own, whenever I 
attempted to entertain persons of a higher rank, they 
always thought my performance odious, and never 
made me any return for my endeavors to please them." 
At Paris he attended the chemical lectures of 
Rouelle, then in great vogue, where he says 1 he wit- 
nessed as bright a circle of beauty as graced the court 
of Versailles. 2 His love of theatricals also led him to 
attend the performances of the celebrated actress 
Mademoiselle Clairon, 3 with which he was greatly 
delighted. He seems to have looked upon the state 
of society with the eye of a philosopher, but to have 
read the signs of the times with the prophetic eye of 
a poet. In his rambles about the environs of Paris 
he was struck with the immense quantities of game 
running about almost in a tame state; and saw in 
those costly and rigid preserves for the amusement 
and luxury of the privileged few, a sure "badge of 
the slavery of the people." This slavery he predicted 
was drawing towards a close. "When I consider 
that these parliaments, the members of which are all 
created by the court, and the presidents of which can 
only act by immediate direction, presume even to men- 
tion privileges and freedom, who till of late received 
directions from the throne with implicit humility; 
when this is considered, I cannot help fancying that 
the genius of Freedom has entered that kingdom in 

1 In The Present State of Polite Learning, ch. vii. 

2 A royal palace, eleven miles west-southwest of Paris. 

8 Clairon (kla-ron') " was born in 1723, retired from the stage 
in 1765, and died in 1803, in her eightieth year. Garrick, when 
he visited Paris in 1752, became acquainted with her, and always 
afterwards expressed the highest admiration of her talents." — 
The Bee, No. ii., Prior ed. i. 48, note. 



58 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

disguise. If they have but three weak monarchs 
more successively on the throne, the mask will be 
laid aside, and the country will certainly once more 
be free." 1 Events have testified to the sage forecast 
of the poet. 

During a brief sojourn in Paris, he appears to have 
gained access to valuable society, and to have had 
the honor and pleasure of making the acquaintance 
of Voltaire; 2 of whom, in after years, he wrote a 
memoir. "As a companion," says he, "no man ever 
exceeded him when he pleased to lead the conversa- 
tion; which, however, was not always the case. In 
company which he either disliked or despised, few 
could be more reserved than he; but when he was 
warmed in discourse — and got over a hesitating 
manner which sometimes he was subject to — it was 
rapture to hear him. His meagre visage seemed 
insensibly to gather beauty: every muscle in it had 
meaning, and his eye beamed with unusual brightness. 
The person who writes this memoir," continues he, 
"remembers to have seen him in a select company of 
wits of both sexes at Paris, when the subject hap- 
pened to turn upon English taste and learning. Fon- 
tenelle 3 (then nearly a hundred years old), who was 
of the party, and who being unacquainted with the 

1 Citizen of the World, letter lvi. 

2 The assumed name of Francois Marie Arouet (1694-1778), 
author and philosopher, one of the most famous of Frenchmen. 
His published works fill seventy or eighty volumes. He was 
often out of favor at the French court, and was exiled more than 
once. He passed several years at the court of Frederick the 
Great of Prussia; and he also lived in England and Switzer- 
land. 

8 A French advocate, philosopher and author (1657-1757), 
noted principally for his great age. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 59 

language or authors of the country he undertook to 
condemn, with a spirit truly vulgar began to revile 
both. Diderot, 1 who liked the English, and knew 
something of their literary pretensions, attempted to 
vindicate their poetry and learning, but with unequal 
abilities. The company quickly perceived that Fon- 
tenelle was superior in the dispute, and were surprised 
at the silence which Voltaire had preserved all the 
former part of the night, particularly as the conversa- 
tion happened to turn upon one of his favorite topics. 
Fontenelle continued his triumph until about twelve 
o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused from 
his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He 
began his defence with the utmost defiance mixed with 
spirit, and now and then let fall the finest strokes of 
raillery upon his antagonist; and his harangue lasted 
till three in the morning. I must confess, that, 
whether from national partiality, or from the elegant 
sensibility of his manner, I never was so charmed, nor 
did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he 
gained in this dispute." 2 Goldsmith's ramblings took 
him into Germany and Switzerland, from which last- 
mentioned country he sent to his brother in Ireland 
the first brief sketch, afterwards amplified into his 
poem of the "Traveller." 

At Geneva he became travelling tutor to a mongrel 3 

1 A French philosopher and writer (1713-1784), famous as 
the originator of the Encyclopedie. 

2 Memoirs of Voltaire, Prior ed. of Works, iii. 238. At this 
time Voltaire was an exile from Paris. This incident may have 
occurred at the Frenchman's Geneva home. See Life of Gold- 
smith, by Austin Dobson, pp. 39, 40, Scott ed. 

3 In the case of animals, an individual resulting from the 
mixture of several varieties. Here it is used as a term of 
contempt. 



60 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

young gentleman, son of a London pawnbroker, who 
had been suddenly elevated into fortune and absurdity 
by the death of an uncle. The youth, before setting 
up for a gentleman, had been an attorney's appren- 
tice, and was an arrant pettifogger in money matters. 
Never were two beings more illy assorted than he and 
Goldsmith. We may form an idea of the tutor and 
the pupil from the following extract from the narra- 
tive of the "Philosophic Vagabond." 

"I was to be the young gentleman's governor, but 
with a proviso that he could always be permitted to 
govern himself. My pupil, in fact, understood the 
art of guiding in money concerns much better than 
I. He was heir to a fortune of about two hundred 
thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the West 
Indies; and his guardians, to qualify him for the 
management of it, had bound him apprentice to an 
attorney. Thus avarice was his prevailing passion; 
all his questions on the road were, how money might 
be saved, — which was the least expensive course of 
travel, whether anything could be bought that would 
turn to account when disposed of again in London? 
Such curiosities on the way as could be seen for 
nothing he was ready enough to look at; but if the 
sight of them was to be paid for, he usually asserted 
that he had been told that they were not worth see- 
ing. He never paid a bill that he would not observe 
how amazingly expensive travelling was, and all this 
though not yet twenty-one." 

In this sketch Goldsmith undoubtedly shadows 
forth his annoyances as travelling tutor to this concrete 
young gentleman, compounded of the pawnbroker, the 
pettifogger, and the West Indian heir, with an over- 
laying of the city miser. They had continual difficul- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 61 

ties on all points of expense until they reached Mar- 
seilles, where both were glad to separate. 

Once more on foot, but freed from the irksome 
duties of "bear-leader," and with some of his pay, 
as tutor, in his pocket, Goldsmith continued his half 
vagrant peregrinations through part of France and 
Piedmont l and some of the Italian states. He had 
acquired, as has been shown, a habit of shifting along 
and living by expedients, and a new one presented 
itself in Italy. "My skill in music," says he, in the 
"Philosophic Vagabond," "could avail me nothing in 
a country where every peasant was a better musician 
than I ; but by this time I had acquired another tal- 
ent, which answered my purpose as well, and this was 
a skill in disputation. In all the foreign universities 
and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophi- 
cal theses 2 maintained against every adventitious dis- 
putant, for which, if the champion opposes with any 
dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, 
and a bed for one night." 3 Though a poor wander- 
ing scholar, his reception in these learned piles was 
as free from humiliation as in the cottages of the 
peasantry. "With the members of these establish- 
ments," said he, "I could converse on topics of liter- 
ature, and then I always forgot the meanness of my 
circumstances." 

At Padua, where he remained some months, he is 
said to have taken his medical degree. 4 It is prob- 

1 The most northwestern division of Italy, the scene of a re- 
ligious massacre in 1655. Read Milton's sonnet " On the Late 
Massacre in Piemont." 

2 Statements or propositions to be proved or defended by 
argument. 

3 From Vicar of Wakefield, Riverside Literature Series, 142. 

4 There seems to be no proof that Goldsmith took this degree. 



G2 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

able he was brought to a pause in this city by the illness 
of his uncle Contarine ; who had hitherto assisted him 
in his wanderings by occasional though, of course, 
slender remittances. Deprived of this source of sup- 
plies, he wrote to his friends in Ireland, and especially 
to his brother-in-law, Hodson, describing his destitute 
situation. His letters brought him neither money nor 
reply. It appears, from subsequent correspondence, 
that his brother-in-law actually exerted himself to 
raise a subscription for his assistance among his rela- 
tives, friends, and acquaintance, but without success. 
Their faith and hope in him were most probably at 
an end; as yet he had disappointed them at every 
point, he had given none of the anticipated proofs of 
talent, and they were too poor to support what they 
may have considered the wandering propensities of a 
heedless spendthrift. 

Thus left to his own precarious resources, Gold- 
smith gave up all further wandering in Italy, without 
visiting the south, though Rome and Naples must 
have held out powerful attractions to one of his poeti- 
cal cast. Once more resuming his pilgrim staff, he 
turned his face toward England, " walking along from 
city to city, examining mankind more nearly, and 
seeing both sides of the picture. " In traversing 
France his flute — his magic flute ! — was once more 
in requisition, as we may conclude by the following 
passage in his "Traveller : " — 

" Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
How often have I led thy sportive choir 
With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire! 
Where shading elms along the margin grew, 
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 63 

And haply though my harsh note falt'ring still, 
But mocked all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill; 
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour. 
Alike all ages: Dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the mirthful maze, 
And the gay grandsire, skilTd in gestic lore, ' 
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of three-score." 



CHAPTER VI. 

Landing in England. — Shifts of a Man without Money. — The 
Pestle and Mortar. — Theatricals in a Barn. — Launch upon 
London. — A City Xight-Scene. — Struggles with Penury. — 
Miseries of a Tutor. — A Doctor in the Suburb. — Poor Prac- 
tice and Second-Hand Finery. — A Tragedy in Embryo. — 
Project of the Written Mountains. 

After two years spent in roving about the Conti- 
nent, "pursuing novelty,'' as he said, "and losing con- 
tent," Goldsmith landed at Dover early in 1756. He 
appears to have had no definite plan of action. The 
death of his uncle Contarine, and the neglect of his 
relatives and friends to reply to his letters, seem to 
have produced in him a temporary feeling of loneli- 
ness and destitution, and his only thought was to get 
to London, and throw himself upon the world. But 
how was he to get there? His purse was empty, — 
England was to him as completely a foreign land as 
any part of the Continent, and where on earth is a 
penniless stranger more destitute ? His flute and his 
philosophy were no longer of any avail; the English 
boors cared nothing for music; there were no con- 
vents ; and as to the learned and the clergy, not one 

1 Knowledge of the movements and bearing of dancers. 



64 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of them would give a vagrant scholar a supper and 
night's lodging for the best thesis that ever was ar- 
gued. "You may easily imagine," says he, in a sub- 
sequent letter to his brother-in-law, "what difficulties 
I had to encounter, left as I was without friends, re- 
commendations, money, or impudence, and that in a 
country where being born an Irishman was sufficient 
to keep me unemployed. Many, in such circum- 
stances, would have had recourse to the friar's cord x 
or the suicide's halter. But, with all my follies, I 
had principle to resist the one, and resolution to com- 
bat the other." 

He applied at one place, we are told, for employ- 
ment in the shop of a country apothecary; but all his 
medical science gathered in foreign universities could 
not gain him the management of a pestle and mortar. 
He even resorted, it is said, to the stage as a tempo- 
rary expedient, and figured in low comedy at a coun- 
try town in Kent. This accords with his last shift of 
the Philosophic Vagabond, and with the knowledge 
of country theatricals displayed in his "Adventures 
of a Strolling Player," 2 or may be a story suggested 
by them. All this part of his career, however, in 
which he must have trod the lowest paths of humility, 
are only to be conjectured from vague traditions, or 
scraps of autobiography gleaned from his miscella- 
neous writings. 

At length we find him launched on the great me- 
tropolis, or rather drifting about its streets, at night, 

1 The Franciscan friars wore a cord as a girdle. Goldsmith 
means that, in such circumstances, many would have ended their 
misery by suicide or by turning friar. 

2 Vicar of Wakefield, Riverside Literature Series, p. 143. Also 
Essay No. xiii., Prior ed. i. 238. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
rbomv month of Febru: 



65 



ra:re 



in his own works, and furnished, d< 
own experiea 

"TiiT :~::a a:-.s ast struck twc 
hangs all around! no sound is _- . . . 
.: :: :I:e aistaa: ~a :■:::- a : i\ 
in those streets, which but some it 
crowded! But who are those who 
their couch, and find a short repose 1 
at the doors of the opulent? Hi 
wanderers, and orphans, whose a 
humble to expect redress, and whose 
great even for pity. Some are wil 
even of rags, and others emaciated 
world has disclaimed them; societ 
upon their distress, and has given tl 
ness and hunger. These poor shirt 
i>\ :-: s->y\ l .:7.:,:i-: ' r : : 5. :r\-::. :■*:-: ". ,~.: 
They are now turned out to meet tib 
ter. Perhaps now. ly- = 
ers, they sue to wretches whose heai 
or debauchees who may 
them. 

"TVhv. whv was I bon 

sufferings of wretches I ea 

less creatures! The worlc 

vou relief 



uary, with but a lew half- 

>eserts :•£ Arabia are not 
s than the streets of Lon- 
stranger in such a plight. 
Hustration? "We have it 
shed, doubtless, from his 



what a el 



m 



■ar 

re 



^ii 11 a 1 La 



cq up to naked- 



— to what 



! nearcs are in sen &i Die, 
■. but will not relieve 

man. and yet see the 
: relieve ! Poor honse- 
1 give you reproaches, 

a ay here ejaculate 
re been driven to find 






66 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

shelter and sustenance for himself in this his first 
venture into London ! Many years afterwards, in the 
days of his social elevation, he startled a polite circle 
at Sir Joshua Reynolds's 1 by humorously dating an 
anecdote about the time he "lived among the beggars 
of Axe Lane." Such may have been the desolate 
quarters with which he was fain to content himself 
when thus adrift upon the town, with but a few half- 
pence in his pocket. 

The first authentic trace we have of him in this new 
part of his career, is filling the situation of an usher 2 
to a school, and even this employ he obtained with 
some difficulty, after a reference for a character to 
his friends in the University of Dublin. In the 
"Vicar of Wakefield" he makes George Primrose 
undergo a whimsical catechism concerning the requi- 
sites for an usher. "Have you been bred apprentice 
to the business?" "No." "Then you won't do for 
a school. Can you dress the boys' hair?" "No." 
"Then you won't do for a school. Can you lie three 
in a bed? " "No." "Then you will never do for a 
school. Have you a good stomach? " "Yes." "Then 
you will by no means do for a school. I have been 
an usher in a boarding-school myself, and may I die 
of an anodyne necklace, 3 but I had rather be under- 
turnkey in Newgate. 4 I was up early and late: I 
was browbeat by the master, hated for my ugly face 
by the mistress, worried by the boys." 5 

1 An eminent English portrait painter. He suggested the 
establishment of the " Literary Club," to which Johnson, Burke, 
Goldsmith, and Garrick belonged. (1723-1792.) From this 
time, he is closely associated with Goldsmith. 

2 An under teacher. 3 Here means a hangman's rope. 

4 A famous London prison. 

5 Vicar of Wake/ield, p. 128, Riverside Literature Series. 
This quotation is slightly garbled. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 67 

Goldsmith remained but a short time in this situa- 
tion, and to the mortifications experienced there we 
doubtless owe the picturings given in his writings of 
the hardships of an usher's life. "He is generally," 
says he, "the laughing-stock of the school. Every 
trick is played upon him; the oddity of his manner, 
his dress, or his language is a fund of eternal ridi- 
cule; the master himself now and then cannot avoid 
joining in the laugh; and the poor wretch, eternally 
resenting this ill-usage, lives in a state of war with all 
the family. . . . He is obliged, perhaps, to sleep in 
the same bed with the French teacher, who disturbs 
him for an hour every night in papering and filleting 1 
his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion with his 
rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside him 
on the bolster." 2 

His next shift was as assistant in the laboratory of 
a chemist near Fish Street Hill. After remaining 
here a few months, he heard that Dr. Sleigh, who 
had been his friend and fellow-student at Edinburgh, 
was in London. Eager to meet with a friendly face 
in this land of strangers, he immediately called on 
him; "but though it was Sunday, and it is to be sup- 
posed I was in my best clothes, Sleigh scarcely knew 
me — such is the tax the unfortunate pay to poverty. 
However, when he did recollect me, I found his heart 
as warm as ever, and he shared his purse and friend- 
ship with me during his continuance in London." 

Through the advice and assistance of Dr. Sleigh, 
he now commenced the practice of medicine, but in 
a small way, in Bankside, Southwark, and chiefly 
among the poor; for he wanted the figure, address, 
polish, and management, to succeed among the rich. 

1 Binding with fillets or bauds. 2 The Bee, No. vis. 



68 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

His old schoolmate and college companion, Beatty, 
who used to aid him with his purse at the university, 
met him about this time, decked out in the tarnished 
finery of a second-hand suit of green and gold, with a 
shirt and neckcloth of a fortnight's wear. 

Poor Goldsmith endeavored to assume a prosperous 
air in the eyes of his early associate. "He was prac- 
tising physic," he said, "and doing very well/" At 
this moment poverty was pinching him to the bone in 
spite of his practice and his dirty finery. His fees 
were necessarily small and ill paid, and he was fain 
to seek some precarious assistance from his pen. Here 
his quondam J fellow-student, Dr. Sleigh, was again 
of service, introducing him to some of the booksellers, 
who gave him occasional, though starveling, employ- 
ment. According to tradition, however, his most 
efficient patron just now was a journeyman printer, 
one of his poor patients of Bankside, who had formed 
a good opinion of his talents, and perceived his pov- 
erty and his literary shifts. The printer was in the 
employ of Mr. Samuel Richardson, 2 the author of 
"Pamela," "Clarissa," and " Sir Charles Grandison ; " 
who combined the novelist and the publisher, and 
was in flourishing circumstances. Through the jour- 
neyman's intervention Goldsmith is said to have be- 
come acquainted with Richardson, who employed him 
as reader and corrector of the press, at his printing 
establishment in Salisbury Court, — an occupation 
which he alternated with his medical duties. 

Being admitted occasionally to Richardson's parlor, 
he began to form literary acquaintances, among whom 
the most important was Dr. Young, 3 the author of 

1 Former. 2 1689-1761. 8 Edward Young (1681-1765). 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 69 

"Night Thoughts," a poem in the height of fashion. 
It is not probable, however, that much familiarity 
took place at the time between the literary lion of the 
day and the poor iEsculapius 1 of Bankside, the hum- 
ble corrector of the press. Still the communion with 
literary men had its effect to set his imagination teem- 
ing. Dr. Farr, one of his Edinburgh fellow-students, 
who was at London about this time, attending the 
hospitals and lectures, gives us an amusing account of 
Goldsmith in his literary character. 

"Early in January he called upon me one morning 
before I was up, and, on my entering the room, I re- 
cognized my old acquaintance, dressed in a rusty, full- 
trimmed black suit, with his pockets full of papers, 
which instantly reminded me of the poet in Garrick's 2 
farce of ' Lethe.' After we had finished our break- 
fast, he drew from his pocket part of a tragedy, which 
he said he had brought for my correction. In vain I 
pleaded inability, when he began to read; and every 
part on which I expressed a doubt as to the propriety 
was immediately blotted out. I then most earnestly 
pressed him not to trust to my judgment, but to take 
the opinion of persons better qualified to decide on 
dramatic compositions. He now told me he had sub- 
mitted his production, so far as he had written, to Mr. 
Richardson, the author of ' Clarissa,' on which I pe- 
remptorily declined offering another criticism on the 
performance." 

1 The son of Apollo and Coronis, called the god of medicine. 

2 (1717-1779.) A celebrated actor, dramatist, and theatrical 
manager. The poet in his farce, Lethe, is seeking relief from the 
ghost of his drama that has been condemned. The best descrip- 
tion of Garrick may be found in Goldsmith's poem " Retalia- 
tion," quoted on p. 363. 



70 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

From the graphic description given of him by Dr. 
Farr, it will be perceived that the tarnished finery of 
green and gold had been succeeded by a professional 
suit of black, to which, we are told, were added the 
wig and cane indispensable to medical doctors in those 
days. The coat was a second-hand one, of rusty vel- 
vet, with a patch on the left breast, which he adroitly 
covered with his three-cornered hat during his medical 
visits; and we have an amusing anecdote of his con- 
test of courtesy with a patient who persisted in en- 
deavoring to relieve him from the hat, which only 
made him press it more devoutly to his heart. 

Nothing further has ever been heard of the tragedy 
mentioned by Dr. Farr; it was probably never com- 
pleted. The same gentleman speaks of a strange 
Quixotic 1 scheme which Goldsmith had in contempla- 
tion at the time, "of going to decipher the inscrip- 
tions on the written mountains? though he was alto- 
gether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which 
they might be supposed to be written." "The salary 
of three hundred pounds," adds Dr. Farr, "which 
had been left for the purpose, was the temptation." 
This was probably one of the many dreamy projects 
with which his fervid brain was apt to teem. On 
such subjects he was prone to talk vaguely and mag- 
nificently, but inconsiderately, from a kindled imagi- 

1 Characteristic of Don Quixote, absurdly romantic. See note 
on p. 31. 

2 So called by the Arabs because of inscriptions on their rocky 
faces. In Goldsmith's time, it was believed that these inscrip- 
tions contained information that would be of value to the student 
of the Bible. Now it is known that they are in the Nabatean 
language and that the information connected with them is of 
interest largely to the student of language. Forster, Historical 
Geography of Arabia, vol. i. p. 229, note. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 71 

nation rather than a well-instructed judgment. He 
had always a great notion of expeditions to the East, 
and wonders to be seen and effected in the Oriental 
countries. 

CHAPTER VH. 

Life of a Pedagogue. — Kindness to Schoolboys. — Pertness in 
Return. — Expensive Charities. — The Griffiths and the 
" Monthly Review." — Toils of a Literary Hack. — Rupture 
with the Griffiths. 

Among the most cordial of Goldsmith's intimates 
in London during this time of precarious struggle, 
were certain of his former fellow-students in Edin- 
burgh. One of these was the son of a Dr. Milner, 
a dissenting minister, who kept a classical school of 
eminence at Peckham, in Surrey. Young Milner had 
a favorable opinion of Goldsmith's abilities and at- 
tainments, and cherished for him that good will which 
his genial nature seems ever to have inspired among 
his school and college associates. His father falling 
ill, the young man negotiated with Goldsmith to take 
temporary charge of the school. The latter readily 
consented ; for he was discouraged by the slow growth 
of medical reputation and practice, and as yet had no 
confidence in the coy smiles of the Muse. Laying by 
his wig and cane, therefore, and once more wielding 
the ferule, he resumed the character of the pedagogue, 
and for some time reigned as vicegerent : over the 
academy at Peckham. He appears to have been well 
treated by both Dr. Milner and his wife, and became 
a favorite with the scholars from his easy, indulgent 
good-nature. He mingled in their sports, told them 
1 A substitute, an acting principal. 



72 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

droll stories, played on the flute for their amusement, 
and spent his money in treating them to sweetmeats 
and other schoolboy dainties. His familiarity was 
sometimes carried too far; he indulged in boyish 
pranks and practical jokes, and drew upon himself 
retorts in kind, which, however, he bore with great 
good-humor. Once, indeed, he was touched to the 
quick by a piece of schoolboy pertness. After play- 
ing on the flute, he spoke with enthusiasm of music, 
as delightful in itself and as a valuable accomplish- 
ment for a gentleman, whereupon a youngster, with 
a glance at his ungainly person, wished to know if he 
considered himself a gentleman. Poor Goldsmith, 
feelingly alive to the awkwardness of his appearance 
and the humility of his situation, winced at this un- 
thinking sneer, which long rankled in his mind. 

As usual, while in Dr. Milner's employ, his benev- 
olent feelings were a heavy tax upon his purse, for 
he never could resist a tale of distress, and was apt to 
be fleeced by every sturdy beggar; so that, between 
his charity and his munificence, he was generally in 
advance of his slender salary. "You had better, 
Mr. Goldsmith, let me take care of your money," 
said Mrs. Milner one day, "as I do for some of the 
young gentlemen." "In truth, madam, there is equal 
need ! " was the good-humored reply. 

Dr. Milner was a man of some literary pretensions, 
and wrote occasionally for the "Monthly Review," of 
which a bookseller, by the name of Griffiths, was 
proprietor. This work was an advocate for Whig 
principles, and had been in prosperous existence for 
nearly eight years. Of late, however, periodicals had 
multiplied exceedingly, and a formidable Tory rival 
had started up in the "Critical Review," published 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 73 

by Archibald Hamilton, a bookseller, and aided by 
the powerful and popular pen of Dr. Smollett. 1 
Griffiths was obliged to recruit his forces. While so 
doing he met Goldsmith, a humble occupant of a seat 
at Dr. Milner's table, and was struck with remarks 
on men and books which fell from him in the course 
of conversation. He took occasion to sound him pri- 
vately as to his inclination and capacity as a reviewer, 
and was furnished by him with specimens of his liter- 
ary and critical talents. They proved satisfactory. 
The consequence was that Goldsmith once more 
changed his mode of life, and in April, 1757, became 
a contributor to the "Monthly Review," at a small 
fixed salary, with board and lodging; and accordingly 
took up his abode with Mr. Griffiths, at the sign of 
the Dunciad, 2 Paternoster Row. 3 As usual we trace 
this phase of his fortunes in his semi -fictitious writ- 
ings; his sudden transmutation of the pedagogue into 
the author being humorously set forth in the case of 
"George Primrose" in the "Vicar of Wakefield." 
"Come," says George's adviser, "I see you are a lad 
of spirit and some learning; what do you think of 
commencing author like me ? You have read in books, 
no doubt, of men of genius starving at the trade : at 
present I '11 show you forty very dull fellows about 
town that live by it in opulence. All honest, jog-trot 
men, who go on smoothly and dully, and write history 

1 A British novelist and historian (1721-1771), the author of 
Humphrey Clinker and other popular books; also of a continuation 
of Hume's History of England. 

2 The name of a poem by Pope. Here it is a coffee-house or 
tavern sign. 

8 Xame of a very short street, long famous as a centre of the 
book trade. 



74 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and politics, and are praised : men, sir, who, had they 
been bred cobblers, would all their lives only have 
mended shoes, but never made them." "Finding" 
(says George) "that there was no great degree of 
gentility affixed to the character of an usher, I re- 
solved to accept his proposal ; and, having the high- 
est respect for literature, hailed the antiqua mater 1 
of Grub Street with reverence. I thought it my 
glory to pursue a track which Dryden 2 and Otway 3 
trod before me." 4 Alas, Dryden struggled with in- 
digence all his days; and Otway, it is said, fell a 
victim to famine in his thirty-fifth year, being stran- 
gled by a roll of bread, which he devoured with the 
voracity of a starving man. 

In Goldsmith's experience the track soon proved a 
thorny one. Griffiths was a hard business man, of 

1 Antiqua mater, literally, ancient mother ; here it means the 
presiding genius of Grub Street, which is still in existence, but 
has been known for many years as Milton Street. It was for- 
merly " noted as the abode of small authors, who, as writers of 
trashy pamphlets and broadsides, became the butts for the wits 
of their time. The name Grub Street was first applied to the 
writings of Foxe, author of the Book of Martyrs, who lived on 
that street." 

2 English poet and dramatist (1631-1700). Irving's state- 
ment that Dryden " struggled with indigence all his days," does 
not seem to be accurate. The poet had a good living, though an 
unhappy home. 

8 Otway has been called " the principal tragic poet of the 
English classical school " (1652-1685). In his case Irviug's 
statement is discredited. His poverty was caused by his disso- 
lute habits. His play, Don Carlos, according to one authority, 
" got more money than any preceding modern tragedy." An- 
other report of his death attributes it to a " fever incurred by a 
hurried and fatiguing journey to Dover in pursuit of the assas- 
sin of one of his intimate friends." 

4 Vicar of Wakefield, Riverside Literature Series, pp. 128, 129. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. To 

shrewd, worldly good sense, but little refinement or 
cultivation. He meddled or rather muddled with 
literature, too, in a business way, altering and modi- 
fying occasionally the writings of his contributors, 
and in this he was aided by his wife, who, according 
to Smollett, was "an antiquated female critic and a 
dabbler in the * Review. * ' Such was the literary 
vassalage to which Goldsmith had unwarily subjected 
himself. A diurnal drudgery was imposed on him, 
irksome to his indolent habits, and attended by cir- 
cumstances humiliating to his pride. He had to write 
daily from nine o'clock until two. and often through- 
out the day: whether in the vein or not and on sub- 
jects dictated by his task-master, however foreign to 
his taste : in a word, he was treated as a mere literary 
hack. But this was not the worst; it was the critical 
supervision of Griffiths and his wife which grieved 
him, — the "illiterate, bookselling Griffiths, " as Smol- 
lett called them, "who presumed to revise, alter, and 
amend the articles contributed to their ' Review.' 
Thank Heaven," crowed Smollett, "the ' Critical 
Review ' is not written under the restraint of a book- 
seller and his wife. Its principal writers are inde- 
pendent of each other, unconnected with booksellers, 
and unawed by old women! " 

This literarv vassalage, however, did not last Ion?. 
The bookseller became more and more exacting. He 
accused his hack writer of idleness, of abandoning his 
writing-desk and literary workshop at an early hour 
of the day. and of assuming a tone and manner above 
his situation. Goldsmith, in return, charged him 
with impertinence: his wife, with meanness and parsi- 
mony in her household treatment of him. and both of 
literary meddling and marring. The engagement was 



76 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

broken off at the end of five months, by mutual con- 
sent, and without any violent rupture, as it will be 
found they afterwards had occasional dealings with 
each other. 

Though Goldsmith was now nearly thirty years of 
age, he had produced nothing to give him a decided 
reputation. He was as yet a mere writer for bread. 
The articles he had contributed to the "Review " were 
anonymous, and were never avowed by him. They 
have since been, for the most part, ascertained; and 
though thrown off hastily, often treating on subjects 
of temporary interest, and marred by the Griffith in- 
terpolations, they are still characterized by his sound, 
easy good sense and the genial graces of his style. 
Johnson observed that Goldsmith's genius flowered 
late; he should have said it flowered early, but was 
late in bringing its fruit to maturity. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Newbery, of Picture-book Memory. — How to keep up Appear- 
ances. — Miseries of Authorship. — A Poor Relation. — Letter 
to Hodson. 

Being now known in the publishing world, Gold- 
smith began to find casual employment in various 
quarters; among others he wrote occasionally for the 
"Literary Magazine," a production set on foot by 
Mr. John Newbery, 1 bookseller, St. Paul's Church- 
yard, renowned in nursery literature throughout the 

1 Called " Honest John Newbery " (1713-1767). Conjointly 
with others he wrote and published books for children. For him 
probably Goldsmith wrote The History of Goody Two Shoes. 
See p. 201. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

latter half of the last century for his pieture-l ka : : 
children. Newbery was a worthy, intelligent, kind- 
hearted man, and a seasonable though cautious fr: 
to authors, relieving them with small loans when in 
pecuniary difficulties, though always taking care to 
be well repaid by the labor of their pens. Goldsmith 
ir:roduces him in a humorous ye: friendly manner in 
his novel of the •'Vicar of Wakefield." "This per- 
son was no other than the philanthropic bookseller in 

St. Paul - ::.■-.-. : :.., -■-!.-, m.s -ri-m = : , mam- :-; : . 

tie books for children ; he called himself their friend, 
but he was the friend of all mankind. He was no 
sooner alighted but he was in ha-:e to be gone; for 
he was ever on business of importance, and was at 

that time actually compiling materials for the history 
of one Mr. Thomas Trip. 1 I immediately re-: : 
this good-natured man's red-pimpled face.'* 2 

Besides his literary job work, Goldsmith also re- 
sumed his medical practice, but vrirh very trifling 
neeess. The scantiness ;: his marse s:ih hmiirea him 



to live in obscure 
of Salisbury Sou 

acquaintance and 
consult appearanc 


a r e . x j. e e t Street 

rising importaj 

es. He adorn, :i 


a the m. 

ice caused him to 

an exrmim:. then 


very common, an 

those who have 


to tread the na 


in London among 


pride an 


y: 'Jf^J"? 


>wed in lodgings 



from the Temple Exchange Coffee-House, near Trm- 

1 Goldsmith is said to have been the author of A Pretty Book 
of Pictures for Little Masters and Misses; or Tommy Trip's History 
of Beasts and Birds, to which is prefixed the History of Little Tom 
Trip Himself 

* Vicar of Wakefield, Riverside Literature Series, pp. 113, 114. 



78 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

pie Bar. 1 Here he received his medical calls; hence 
he dated his letters; and here he passed much of his 
leisure hours, conversing with the frequenters of the 
place. "Thirty pounds a year," said a poor Irish 
painter, who understood the art of shifting, "is 
enough to enable a man to live in London without 
being contemptible. Ten pounds will find him in 
clothes and linen ; he can live in a garret on eighteen 
pence a week; hail from a coffee-house, where, by 
occasionally spending threepence, he may pass some 
hours each day in good company; he may breakfast 
on bread and milk for a penny; dine for sixpence; 
do without supper ; and on clean-shirt-day he may go 
abroad and pay visits." 

Goldsmith seems to have taken a leaf from this 
poor devil's manual in respect to the coffee-house at 
least. Indeed, coffee-houses in those days were the 
resorts of wits and literati ; 2 where the topics of the 
day were gossiped over, and the affairs of literature 
and the drama discussed and criticised. In this way 
he enlarged the circle of his intimacy, which now 
embraced several names of notoriety. 

Do we want a picture of Goldsmith's experience in 
this part of his career? We have it in his observa- 
tions on the life of an author in the " Inquiry into the 
State of Polite Learning," published some years 
afterwards. 3 

1 A famous gateway before the Temple, in London. Accord- 
ing to ancient custom, when the sovereign visited the City proper, 
he always asked the Lord Mayor's permission to pass through. 
The last structure, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1670, was 
removed in 1878, as the obstruction to travel was too great. It 
was reerected at Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire. Its place, 
at the junction of Fleet Street and the Strand, is now taken by a 
monument called the Temple Bar Memorial. 

2 Literary men. 3 1759. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 79 

"The author, unpatronized by the great, has natu- 
rally recourse to the bookseller. There cannot, per- 
haps, be imagined a combination more prejudicial to 
taste than this. It is the interest of the one to allow 
as little for writing, and for the other to write as 
much as possible; accordingly, tedious complications 
and periodical magazines are the result of their joint 
endeavors. In these circumstances the author bids 
adieu to fame; writes for bread; and for that only 
imagination is seldom called in. He sits down to 
address the venal Muse with the most phlegmatic 
apathy; and, as we are told of the Eussian, courts his 
mistress by falling asleep in her lap." 

Again. "Those who are unacquainted with the 
world are apt to fancy the man of wit as leading a 
very agreeable life. They conclude, perhaps, that he 
is attended with silent admiration, and dictates to the 
rest of mankind with all the eloquence of conscious 
superiority. Very different is his present situation. 
He is called an author, and all know that an author 
is a thing only to be laughed at. His person, not his 
jest, becomes the mirth of the company. At his ap- 
proach the most fat, unthinking face brightens into 
malicious meaning. Even aldermen laugh, and avenge 
on him the ridicule which was lavished on their fore- 
fathers. . . . The poet's poverty is a standing topic 
of contempt. His writing for bread is an unpardon- 
able offence. Perhaps of all mankind, an author in 
these times is used most hardly. We keep him poor, 
and yet revile his poverty. We reproach him for liv- 
ing by his wit, and yet allow him no other means to 
live. His taking refuge in garrets and cellars has of 
late been violently objected to him; and that by men 
who, I have hope, are more apt to pity than insult his 



80 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

distress. Is poverty a careless fault? No doubt he 
knows how to prefer a bottle of champagne to the 
nectar of the neighboring ale-house, or a venison 
pasty to a plate of potatoes. Want of delicacy is not 
in him, but in those who deny him the opportunity of 
making an elegant choice. Wit certainly is the pro- 
perty of those who have it, nor should we be dis- 
pleased if it is the only property a man sometimes 
has. We must not underrate him who uses it for 
subsistence, and flees from the ingratitude of the age, 
even to a bookseller for redress." 

"If the author be necessary among us, let us treat 
him with proper consideration as a child of the pub- 
lic, not as a rent-charge on the community. And 
indeed a child of the public he is in all respects ; for 
while so well able to direct others, how incapable is 
he frequently found of guiding himself! His sim- 
plicity exposes him to all the insidious approaches 
of cunning: his sensibility, to the slightest invasions 
of contempt. Though possessed of fortitude to stand 
unmoved the expected bursts of an earthquake, yet 
of feelings so exquisitely poignant, as to agonize under 
the slightest disappointment. Broken rest, tasteless 
meals, and causeless anxieties shorten life and render 
it unfit for active employments ; prolonged vigils and 
intense applications still farther contract his span, 
and make his time glide insensibly away." 

While poor Goldsmith was thus struggling with 
the difficulties and discouragements which in those 
days beset the path of an author, his friends in Ire- 
land received accounts of his literary success and of 
the distinguished acquaintances he was making. This 
was enough to put the wise heads at Lissoy and Bal- 
ly mahon in a ferment of conjectures. With the exag- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 81 

gerated notions of provincial relatives concerning the 
family great man in the metropolis, some of Gold- 
smith's poor kindred pictured him to themselves 
seated in high places, clothed in purple and fine linen, 
and hand and glove with the givers of gifts and dis- 
pensers of patronage. Accordingly, he was one day 
surprised at the sudden apparition, in his miserable 
lodging, of his younger brother Charles, a raw youth 
of twenty-one, endowed with a double share of the 
family heedlessness, and who expected to be forthwith 
helped into some snug by-path to fortune by one or 
other of Oliver's great friends. Charles was sadly 
disconcerted on learning that, so far from being able 
to provide for others, his brother could scarcely take 
care of himself. He looked round with a rueful eye 
on the poet's quarters, and could not help expressing 
his surprise and disappointment at finding him no 
better off. "All in good time, my dear boy," replied 
poor Goldsmith, with infinite good- humor; "I shall 
be richer by and by. Addison, 1 let me tell you, 
wrote his poem of the • Campaign' in a garret in the 
Haymarket, three stories high, and you see I am not 
come to that yet, for I have only got to the second 
story." 

Charles Goldsmith did not remain long to embar- 
rass his brother in London. With the same roving 
disposition and inconsiderate temper of Oliver, he 
suddenly departed in an humble capacity to seek his 
fortune in the West Indies, and nothing was heard 

1 Joseph Addison, an eminent English poet, essayist, and 
dramatist (1672-1719). The Campaign celebrates the victory 
of Marlborough at Blenheim. See Macaulay's Essay on Addison 
for particulars concerning his life and works, and for the circum- 
stances under which the Campaign was written. 



82 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of him for above thirty years, when, after having been 
given up as dead by his friends, he made his reap- 
pearance in England. 

Shortly after his departure, Goldsmith wrote a 
letter to his brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, Esq., of 
which the following is an extract ; it was partly in- 
tended, no doubt, to dissipate any further illusions 
concerning his fortunes which might float on the 
magnificent imagination of his friends in Ballyma- 
hon. 

" I suppose you desire to know my present situa- 
tion. As there is nothing in it at which I should 
blush or which mankind could censure, I see no rea- 
son for making it a secret. In short, by a very little 
practice as a physician, and a very little reputation as 
a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more apt 
to introduce us to the gates of the Muses than pov- 
erty; but it were well if they only left us at the door. 
The mischief is, they sometimes choose to give us 
their company to the entertainment; and want, in- 
stead of being gentleman-usher, often turns master 
of the ceremonies. 

"Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you ima- 
gine I starve; and the name of an author naturally 
reminds you of a garret. In this particular I do not 
think proper to undeceive my friends. But, whether 
I eat or starve, live in a first floor or four pairs of 
stairs high, I still remember them with ardor; nay, 
my very country comes in for a share of my affection. 
Unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie du 
pais, 1 as the French call it! Unaccountable that he 
should still have an affection for a place, who never, 
when in it, received above common civility; who 
1 Homesickness. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 83 

never brought anything out of it except his brogue 
and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally 
ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be 
cured of the itch because it made him unco' thought- 
ful of his wife and bonny Inverary. 

" But, now, to be serious : let me ask myself what 
gives me a wish to see Ireland again. The country 
is a fine one, perhaps? No. There are good company 
in Ireland? No. The conversation there is gener- 
ally made up of a smutty toast or a bawdy song; the 
vivacity supported by some humble cousin, who had 
just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then, perhaps, 
there' s more wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, 
Lord, no! There has been more money spent in the 
encouragement of the Padareen 1 mare there one sea- 
son, than given in rewards to learned men since the 
time of Usher. 2 All their productions in learning 
amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in 
divinity; and all their productions in wit to just no- 
thing at all. Why the plague, then, so fond of Ire- 
land ? Then, all at once, because you, my dear friend, 
and a few more who are exceptions to the general 
picture, have a residence there. This it is that gives 
me all the pangs I feel in separation. I confess I 
carry this spirit sometimes to the souring the plea- 
sures I at present possess. If I go to the opera, 
where Signora Columba 8 pours out all the mazes of 

1 " A celebrated Irish racer." — Citizen of the World, letter v. 

2 Archbishop Usher (1580-1656), an Irish prelate, calculated 
the chronology of the Bible. His dates were formerly usually 
accepted. 

3 " Columba Mattei was both a charming singer and a spirited 
and intelligent actress, and a great favorite as a prima donna. 
She retired from the stage in 1762." — Burney, quoted in Prior 
ed. i. 44. In The Bee (No. ii.) Goldsmith says, " The music of 



84 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

melody, I sit and sigh for Lissoy fireside, and Johnny 
Armstrong's ' Last Good-night ' * from Peggy 
Golden. 2 If I climb Hampstead Hill, 3 than where 
nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, 
I confess it fine; but then I had rather be placed on 
the little mount before Lissoy gate, and there take in, 
to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature. 

"Before Charles came hither, my thoughts some- 
times found refuge from severer studies among my 
friends in Ireland. I fancied strange revolutions at 
home ; but I find it was the rapidity of my own mo- 
tion that gave an imaginary one to objects really at 
rest. No alterations there. Some friends, he tells 
me, are still lean, but very rich; others very fat, but 
still very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, 
that you sally out in visits among the neighbors, and 
-sometimes make a migration from the blue bed to the 
brown. 4 I could from my heart wish that you and 
she (Mrs. Hodson), and Lissoy and Bally mahon, and 
all of you, would fairly make a migration into Mid- 
dlesex; though, upon second thoughts, this might be 
attended with a few inconveniences. Therefore, as 

Mattei is dissonance to what I felt when our old dairy-maid sung 
me into tears with Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-Night, or the 
Cruelty of Barbara Allen." 

1 Johnny Armstrong was a Scottish outlaw, famous in ballad 
literature. 

2 Probably the " old dairy-maid " referred to in note above. 

3 Hampstead, a suburb of London, was once noted as a literary 
centre. 

4 This means that Goldsmith's old acquaintances seldom trav- 
elled further than from one room to another. Likewise, the 
Vicar of Wakefield says, " All our adventures were by the fire- 
side, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown " 
(Riverside Literature Series, page 16). 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. So 

the mountain will not come to Mohammed. 1 why. M - 
hammed shall go to the mountain : or. to speak plain 
English, as you cannot conveniently pay me a visit, 
if next summer I can contrive to be absent six weeks 
from London, I shall spend three of them among my 
friends in Ireland. But first, believe me. my design 
is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor levy 
contributions: neither to BXfflfce envy nor solicit fa- 
vor ; in fact, my circumstances are adapted to neither. 
I am too poor to be gazed at, and too rich to need 
assistance." 

CHAPTER IX. 

Hackney Authorship. — Thoughts of Literary Suicide. — Return 
to Peckham. — Oriental Projects. — Literary Enterprise to 
raise Funds. — Letter to Edward Mills, to Robert Bryanton. 
— Death of Uncle Contarine. — Letter to Cousin Jane. 

For some time Goldsmith continued to write mm- 
eellaneously for reviews and other periodical publican 
tions, but without making any decided hit, to use a 
technical term. Indeed as yet he appeared destitute 
of the strong excitement of literary ambition, and 
wrote only on the spur of necessity and at the urgent 
importunity of his bookseller. Hi? indolent and tru- 
ant disposition, ever averse from labor and delighting 
in holiday, had to be scourged up to its task ; still it 
was this very truant disposition which threw an un- 
conscious charm over everything he wrote; bringing 
with it honeyed thoughts and pictured images which 
had sprung up in his mind in the sunny hours of idle- 
ness: these effusions, dashed off on compulsion in 

1 Mohammed, the prophet, and founder of Mohammedanism 

-' -o32). 



86 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the exigency of the moment, were published anony- 
mously; so that they made no collective impression 
on the public, and reflected no fame on the name of 
their author. 

In an essay published some time subsequently in 
"The Bee," Goldsmith adverts in his own humorous 
way to his impatience at the tardiness with which 
his desultory and unacknowledged essays crept into 
notice. "I was once induced," says he, "to show my 
indignation against the public by discontinuing my 
efforts to please ; and was bravely resolved, like Ka- 
leigh, 1 to vex them by burning my manuscripts in a 
passion. Upon reflection, however, I considered what 
set or body of people would be displeased at my rash- 
ness. The sun, after so sad an accident, might shine 
next morning as bright as usual; men might laugh 
and sing the next day, and transact business as be- 
fore; and not a single creature feel any regret but 
myself. Instead of having Apollo in mourning or the 
Muses in a fit of the spleen, instead of having the 
learned world apostrophizing at my untimely decease, 
perhaps all Grub Street might laugh at my fate, and 
self-approving dignity be unable to shield me from 
ridicule." 2 

Circumstances occurred about this time to give 
a new direction to Goldsmith's hopes and schemes. 
Having resumed for a brief period the superinten- 
dence of the Peckham school, during a fit of illness 

1 English courtier, explorer, and author (1552-1618). " Sir 
Walter's History of the Worlde sold very slowlie at first, and the 
book seller complayned of it, and told him that he should be a 
loser by it, which put Sir W. in a passion. He said, that since 
the world did not understand it, they should not have his second 
part, which he took before his face and threw into the fire, and 
burnt it." — Aubrey, quoted, Prior, i. 68, note. 

2 The Bee, iv. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 87 

of Dr. Milner, that gentleman, in requital for his 
timely services, promised to use his influence with a 
friend, an East India director, 1 to procure him a 
medical appointment in India. 

There was every reason to believe that the influence 
of Dr. Milner would be effectual ; but how was Gold- 
smith to find the ways and means of fitting himself 
out for a voyage to the Indies ? In this emergency 
he was driven to a more extended exercise of the pen 
than he had yet attempted. His skirmishing among 
books as a reviewer, and his disputatious ramble 
among the schools and universities and literati of the 
Continent, had filled his mind with facts and obser- 
vations which he now set about digesting into a trea- 
tise of some magnitude, to be entitled "An Inquiry 
into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe." 
As the work grew on his hands, his sanguine temper 
ran ahead of his labors. Feeling secure of success in 
England, he was anxious to forestall the piracy of the 
Irish press ; for as yet, the union 2 not having taken 
place, the English law of copyright did not extend 
to the other side of the Irish channel. He wrote, 
therefore, to his friends in Ireland, urging them to 
circulate his proposals for his contemplated work, and 
obtain subscriptions payable in advance; the money 
to be transmitted to a Mr. Bradley, an eminent book- 
seller in Dublin, who would give a receipt for it and 
be accountable for the delivery of the books. The 
letters written by him on this occasion are worthy of 

1 A director of the East India Company, then in supreme 
control of English interests in the East. 

2 The Act of Union ending the separate Irish parliament and 
uniting Ireland with Great Britain went into effect January 1, 
1801. 



88 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

copious citation as being full of character and inter- 
est. One was to his relative and college intimate, 
Edward Mills, who had studied for the bar, but was 
now living at ease on his estate at Koscommon. "You 
have quitted," writes Goldsmith, "the plan of life 
which you once intended to pursue, and given up 
ambition for domestic tranquillity. I cannot avoid 
feeling some regret that one of my few friends has 
declined a pursuit in which he had every reason to 
expect success. I have often let my fancy loose when 
you were the subject, and have imagined you gracing 
the bench, or thundering at the bar: while I have 
taken no small pride to myself, and whispered to all 
that I could come near, that this was my cousin. In- 
stead of this, it seems, you are merely contented to 
be a happy man ; to be esteemed by your acquaint- 
ances; to cultivate your paternal acres; to take un- 
molested a nap under one of your own hawthorns, or 
in Mrs. Mills's bedchamber, which, even a poet must 
confess, is rather the more comfortable place of the 
two. But, however your resolutions may be altered 
with regard to your situation in life, I persuade my- 
self they are unalterable with respect to your friends 
in it. I cannot think the world has taken such entire 
possession of that heart (once so susceptible of friend- 
ship) as not to have left a corner there for a friend 
or two, but I flatter myself that even I have a place 
among the number. This I have a claim to from the 
similitude of our dispositions; or setting that aside, 
I can demand it as a right by the most equitable law 
of nature : I mean that of retaliation ; for indeed you 
have more than your share in mine. I am a man of 
few professions ; and yet at this very instant I cannot 
avoid the painful apprehension that my present pro- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 89 

fessions (which speak not half my feelings) should be 
considered only as a pretext to cover a request, as I 
have a request to make. No, my dear Ned, I know 
you are too generous to think so, and you know me 
too proud to stoop to unnecessary insincerity, — I 
have a request, it is true, to make ; but as I know to 
whom I am a petitioner, I make it without diffidence 
or confusion. It is in short this : I am going to pub- 
lish a book in London," etc. The residue of the 
letter specifies the nature of the request, which was 
merely to aid in circulating his proposals and obtain- 
ing subscriptions. The letter of the poor author, 
however, was unattended to and unacknowledged by 
the prosperous Mr. Mills, of Roscommon, though in 
after years he was proud to claim relationship to Dr. 
Goldsmith, when he had risen to celebrity. 

Another of Goldsmith's letters was to Eobert Bry- 
anton, with whom he had long ceased to be in corre- 
spondence. "I believe," writes he, "that they who 
are drunk, or out of their wits, fancy everybody else 
in the same condition. Mine is a friendship that 
neither distance nor time can efface, which is probably 
the reason that, for the soul of me, I can't avoid think- 
ing yours of the same complexion; and yet I have 
many reasons for being of a contrary opinion, else 
why, in so long an absence, was I never made a part- 
ner in your concerns? To hear of your success would 
have given me the utmost pleasure ; and a communi- 
cation of your very disappointments would divide the 
uneasiness I too frequently feel for my own. Indeed, 
my dear Bob, you don't conceive how unkindly you 
have treated one whose circumstances afford him few 
prospects of pleasure, except those reflected from the 
happiness of his friends. However, since you have 



90 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

not let me hear from you, I have in some measure 
disappointed your neglect by frequently thinking of 
you. Every day or so I remember the calm anecdotes 
of your life, from the fireside to the easy-chair ; recall 
the various adventures that first cemented our friend- 
ship, — the school, the college, or the tavern ; preside 
in fancy over your cards; and am displeased at your 
bad play when the rubber goes against you, though 
not with all that agony of soul as when I was once 
your partner. Is it not strange that two of such like 
affections should be so much separated, and so differ- 
ently employed as we are? You seem placed at the 
centre of fortune's wheel, 1 and, let it revolve ever so 
fast, are insensible of the motion. I seem to have 
been tied to the circumference, and whirled disagree- 
ably round, as if on a whirligig." 

He then runs into a whimsical and extravagant 
tirade about his future prospects, the wonderful career 
of fame and fortune that awaits him, and after in- 
dulging in all kinds of humorous gasconades, 2 con- 
cludes: "Let me, then, stop my fancy to take a view 
of my future self, — and, as the boys say, light down 
to see myself on horseback. Well, now that I am 
down, where the d — 1 is If O gods ! gods ! here in a 
garret, writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned 
for a milk score ! " 

He would, on this occasion, have doubtless written 
to his uncle Contarine, but that generous friend was 

1 The Roman goddess Fortuna was represented as standing 
on a ball or wheel. This indicated that luck rolled like a 
wheel, changing one's condition of rest or prosperity at every 
instant. 

2 Boasts; the Gascons (natives of La Gascogne, France) are 
supposed to be particularly given to braggadocio. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 91 

sunk into a helpless, hopeless state from which death 
soon released him. 

Cut off thus from the kind cooperation of his uncle, 
he addresses a letter to his daughter Jane, the com- 
panion of his schoolboy and happy days, now the wife 
of Mr. Lawder. The object was to secure her inter- 
est with her husband in promoting the circulation of 
his proposals. The letter is full of character. 

"If you should ask," he begins, "why, in an inter- 
val of so many years, you never heard from me, per- 
mit me, madam, to ask the same question. I have 
the best excuse in recrimination. I wrote to Kilmore 
from Ley den in Holland, from Louvain in Flanders, 
and Rouen in France, but received no answer. To 
what could I attribute this silence but to displeasure 
or forgetfulness? Whether I was right in my con- 
jecture I do not pretend to determine; but this I must 
ingenuously own, that I have a thousand times in my 
turn endeavored to forget them, whom I could not 
but look upon as forgetting me. I have attempted to 
blot their names from my memory, and, I confess it, 
spent whole days in efforts to tear their image from 
my heart. Could I have succeeded, you had not now 
been troubled with this renewal of a discontinued cor- 
respondence ; but, as every effort the restless make to 
procure sleep serves but to keep them waking, all my 
attempts contributed to impress what I would forget 
deeper on my imagination. But this subject I would 
willingly turn from, and yet, ' for the soul of me,' I 
can't till I have said all. I was, madam, when I dis- 
continued writing to Kilmore, in such circumstances, 
that all my endeavors to continue your regards might 
be attributed to wrong motives. My letters might be 
looked upon as the petitions of a beggar, and not the 



92 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

offerings of a friend; while all my professions, in- 
stead of being considered of the result of disinterested 
esteem, might be ascribed to venal insincerity. I 
believe, indeed, you had too much generosity to place 
them in such a light, but I could not bear even the 
shadow of such a suspicion. The most delicate friend- 
ships are always most sensible of the slightest invasion, 
and the strongest jealousy is ever attendant on the 
warmest regard. I could not — I own I could not — • 
continue a correspondence in which every acknow- 
ledgment for past favors might be considered as an 
indirect request for future ones ; and where it might 
be thought I gave my heart from a motive of gratitude 
alone, when I was conscious of having bestowed it on 
much more disinterested principles. It is true, this 
conduct might have been simple enough ; but yourself 
must confess it was in character. Those who know 
me at all, know that I have always been actuated by 
different principles from the rest of mankind: and 
while none regarded the interest of his friend more, 
no man on earth regarded his own less. I have often 
affected bluntness to avoid the imputation of flattery; 
have frequently seemed to overlook those merits too 
obvious to escape notice, and pretended disregard to 
those instances of good-nature and good sense, which 
I could not fail tacitly to applaud ; and all this lest I 
should be ranked among the grinning tribe, who say 
6 very true ' to all that is said ; who fill a vacant chair 
at a tea-table ; whose narrow souls never moved in a 
wider circle than the circumference of a guinea ; and 
who had rather be reckoning the money in your 
pocket than the virtue in your breast. All this, I say 
I have done, and a thousand other very silly, though 
very disinterested, things in my time; and for all 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 93 

which no soul cares a farthing about me. ... Is it 
to be wondered that he should once in his life for- 
get you, who has been all his life forgetting himself? 
However, it is probable you may one of these days 
see me turned into a perfect hunks, 1 and as dark and 
intricate as a mouse-hole. I have already given my 
landlady orders for an entire reform in the state of my 
finances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink less 
sugar in my tea, and check my grate with brickbats. 
Instead of hanging my room with pictures, I intend 
to adorn it with maxims of frugality. Those will 
make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit too 
expensive ; for I will draw them all out with my own 
hands, and my landlady's daughter shall frame them 
with the parings of my black waistcoat. Each maxim 
is to be inscribed on a sheet of clean paper, and wrote 2 
with my best pen : of which the following will serve 
as a specimen. Look sharp : Mind the main chance: 
Money is money nov: : If you have a thousand pounds 
you can put your hands by your sides, and say you 
are worth a thousand pounds every day of the year : 
Tal'e a farthing from a hundred and it icill be a 
hundred no longer. ' Thus, which way soever I turn 
my eyes, they are sure to meet one of those friendly 
monitors ; and as we are told of an actor who hung 
his room round with looking-glass to correct the de- 
fects of his person, my apartment shall be furnished 
in a peculiar manner, to correct the errors of my 
mind. Faith ! madam, I heartily wish to be rich, if 
it were only for this reason, to say without a blush 
how much I esteem you. But, alas! I have many 

1 A niggard or miser. 

2 In Goldsmith's time, ■' wrote " for " written " was acceptable 
English. 



94 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

a fatigue to encounter before that happy time comes, 
when your poor old simple friend may again give a 
loose to the luxuriance of his nature; sitting by Kil- 
more fireside, recount the various adventures of a 
hard-fought life; laugh over the follies of the day; 
join his flute to your harpsichord; and forget that 
ever he starved in those streets where Butler 1 and 
Otway starved before him. And now I mention those 
great names — my Uncle ! he is no more that soul of 
fire as when I once knew him. Newton 2 and Swift 3 
grew dim with age as well as he. But what shall I 
say? His mind was too active an inhabitant not to 
disorder the feeble mansion of its abode ; for the rich- 
est jewels soonest wear their settings. Yet, who but 
the fool would lament his condition ! He now forgets 
the calamities of life. Perhaps indulgent Heaven has 
given him a foretaste of that tranquillity here, which 
he so well deserves hereafter. But I must come to 
business ; for business, as one of my maxims tells me, 
must be minded or lost. I am a-going to publish in 
London a book entitled ' The Present State of Taste 
and Literature in Europe.' The booksellers in Ire- 
land republish every performance there without mak- 

1 Samuel Butler, an English poet, author of Hudibras (1612- 
1680). " After the publication and popularity of that great 
satire, he seems to have been a disappointed man." — Saints- 
bury. 

2 Sir Isaac Newton, an illustrious English scientist (1642- 
1727). He discovered and formulated the law of gravitation. 
He lived to be nearly eighty-five years old, and may have grown 
" dim with age." 

8 Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). A British politician, satirist, 
and man of letters, author of Gulliver's Travels; he was Dean of 
St. Patrick's, Dublin. He was insane during the last years of 
his life. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 95 

ing the author any consideration. I would, in this re- 
spect, disappoint their avarice, and have all the profits 
of my labor to myself. I must, therefore, request 
Mr. Lawder to circulate among his friends and ac- 
quaintances a hundred of my proposals, which I have 
given the bookseller, Mr. Bradley, in Dame Street, 
directions to send to him. If, in pursuance of such 
circulation, he should receive any subscriptions, I en- 
treat, when collected, they may be sent to Mr. Bradley, 
as aforesaid, who will give a receipt, and be account- 
able for the work, or a return of the subscription. 
If this request (which, if it be complied with, will 
in some measure be an encouragement to a man of 
learning) should be disagreeable or troublesome, I 
would not press it; for I would be the last man on 
earth to have my labors go a-begging; but if I know 
Mr. Lawder (and sure I ought to know him), he will 
accept the employment with pleasure. All I can say 
— if he writes a book, I will get him two hundred 
subscribers, and those of the best wits in Europe. 
Whether this request is complied with or not, I shall 
not be uneasy; but there is one petition I must make 
to him and to you, which I solicit with the warmest 
ardor, and in which I cannot bear a refusal. I mean, 
dear madam, that I may be allowed to subscribe my- 
self, your ever affectionate and obliged kinsman, Oli- 
ver Goldsmith. Now see how I blot and blunder, 
when I am asking a favor." 



96 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER X. 

Oriental Appointment, and Disappointment. — Examination at 
the College of Surgeons. — How to procure a Suit of Clothes. 

— Fresh Disappointment. — A Tale of Distress. — The Suit of 
Clothes in Pawn. — Punishment for doing an Act of Charity. 

— Gayeties of Green Arbor Court. — Letter to his Brother. — 
Life of Voltaire. — Scroggins, an Attempt at Mock-Heroic 
Poetry. 

While Goldsmith was yet laboring at his treatise, 
the promise made him by Dr. Milner was carried into 
effect, and he was actually appointed physician and 
surgeon to one of the factories 1 on the coast of Coro- 
mandel. 2 His imagination was immediately on fire 
with visions of Oriental wealth and magnificence. It 
is true the salary did not exceed one hundred pounds, 
but then, as appointed physician, he would have the 
exclusive practice of the place, amounting to one thou- 
sand pounds per annum; with advantages to be de- 
rived from trade and from the high interest of money, 
— twenty per cent. ; in a word, for once in his life, 
the road to fortune lay broad and straight before him. 

Hitherto, in his correspondence with his friends, he 
had said nothing of his India scheme; but now he 
imparted to them his brilliant prospects, urging the 
importance of their circulating his proposals and ob- 
taining him subscriptions and advances on his forth- 
coming work, to furnish funds for his outfit. 

In the mean time he had to task that poor drudge, 

1 A factory was the establishment of a body of merchants 
resident in a foreign place. They usually occupied quarters by 
themselves, where they could protect themselves while gathering 
the products of the laud and disposing of the cargoes of imported 
articles. 2 The eastern seaboard of the Indian peninsula. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 97 

his Muse, for present exigencies. Ten pounds were 
demanded for his appointment- war rant. Other ex- 
penses pressed hard upon him. Fortunately, though 
as yet unknown to fame, his literary capability was 
known to "the trade," and the coinage of his brain 
passed current in Grub Street. Archibald Hamil- 
ton, proprietor of the "Critical Review," the rival to 
that of Griffiths, readily made him a small advance on 
receiving three articles for his periodical. His purse 
thus slenderly replenished, Goldsmith paid for his 
warrant; wiped off the score of his milkmaid; aban- 
doned his garret, and moved into a shabby first floor 
in a forlorn court near the Old Bailey; 2 there to await 
the time of his migration to the magnificent coast of 
Coromandel. 

Alas ! poor Goldsmith ! ever doomed to disappoint- 
ment. Early in the gloomy month of November, that 
month of fog and despondency in London, he learnt 
the shipwreck of his hope. The great Coromandel 
enterprise fell through; or rather the post promised 
him was transferred to some other candidate. The 
cause of this disappointment it is now impossible to 
ascertain. The death of his quasi 2 patron, Dr. Mil- 
ner, which happened about this time, may have had 
some effect in producing it; or there may have been 
some heedlessness and blunder on his own part; or 
some obstacle arising from his insuperable indigence, 
— whatever may have been the cause, he never men- 
tioned it, which gives some ground to surmise that he 
himself was to blame. His friends learnt with sur- 
prise that he had suddenly relinquished his appoint- 

1 The name of a street in London, on which is situated 
the principal criminal court of Eugland, also called the Old 
Bailey. 2 Seeming or apparent. 



98 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ment to India, about which he had raised such san- 
guine expectations: some accused him of fickleness 
and caprice; others supposed him unwilling to tear 
himself from the growing fascinations of the literary 
society of London. 

In the mean time, cut down in his hopes, and hu- 
miliated in his pride by the failure of his Coroman- 
del scheme, he sought, without consulting his friends, 
to be examined at the College of Physicians 1 for the 
humble situation of hospital mate. Even here pov- 
erty stood in his way. It was necessary to appear in 
a decent garb before the examining committee; but 
how was he to do so? He was literally out at elbows 
as well as out of cash. Here again the Muse, so often 
jilted and neglected by him, came to his aid. In con- 
sideration^ four articles furnished to the "Monthly 
Review," Griffiths, his old task-master, was to be- 
come his security to the tailor for a suit of clothes. 
Goldsmith said he wanted them but for a single occa- 
sion, upon which depended his appointment to a situ- 
ation in the army; as soon as that temporary purpose 
was served they would either be returned or paid for. 
The books to be reviewed were accordingly lent to 
him ; the Muse was again set to her compulsory drudg- 
ery; the articles were scribbled off and sent to the 
bookseller, and the clothes came in due time from the 
tailor. 

From the records of the College of Surgeons, 2 it 
appears that Goldsmith underwent his examination 

1 The Royal College of Physicians was founded in 1518. No 
one could practise medicine in the city of London without a 
license from this body. 

2 A body similar in power to the College of Physicians. It 
was first recognized about 1460. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 99 

at Surgeons' Hall, on the 21st of December, 1758. 
Either from a confusion of mind incident to sensitive 
and imaginative persons on such occasions, or from a 
real want of surgical science, which last is extremely 
probable, he failed in his examination, and was re- 
jected as unqualified. The effect of such a rejection 
was to disqualify him for every branch of public ser- 
vice, though he might have claimed a reexamination, 
after the interval of a few months devoted to further 
study. Such a reexamination he never attempted, nor 
did he ever communicate his discomfiture to any of 
his friends. 

On Christmas day, but four days after his rejection 
by the College of Surgeons, while he was suffering 
under the mortification of defeat and disappointment, 
and hard pressed for means of subsistence, he was 
surprised by the entrance into his room of the poor 
woman of whom he hired his wretched apartment, and 
to whom he owed some small arrears of rent. She 
had a piteous tale of distress, and was clamorous in 
her afflictions. Her husband had been arrested in 
the night for debt, and thrown into prison. This was 
too much for the quick feelings of Goldsmith ; he was 
ready at any time to help the distressed, but in this 
instance he was himself in some measure a cause 
of the distress. What was to be done? He had no 
money, it is true; but there hung the new suit of 
clothes in which he had stood his unlucky examination 
at Surgeons' Hall. Without giving himself time for 
reflection, he sent it off to the pawnbroker's, and 
raised thereon a sufficient sum to pay off his own debt, 
and to release his landlord from prison. 

Under the same pressure of penury and despon- 
dency, he borrowed from a neighbor a pittance to re- 



100 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

lieve his immediate wants, leaving as a security the 
books which he had recently reviewed. In the midst 
of these straits and harassments, he received a letter 
from Griffiths, demanding, in peremptory terms, the 
return of the clothes and books, or immediate pay- 
ment for the same. It appears that he had discovered 
the identical suit at the pawnbroker's. The reply of 
Goldsmith is not known ; it was out of his power to 
furnish either the clothes or the money ; but he prob- 
ably offered once more to make the Muse stand his 
bail. His reply only increased the ire of the wealthy 
man of trade, and drew from him another letter still 
more harsh than the first ; using the epithets of knave 
and sharper, and containing threats of prosecution 
and a prison. 

The following letter from poor Goldsmith gives the 
most touching picture of an inconsiderate but sensi- 
tive man, harassed by care, stung by humiliations, and 
driven almost to despondency. 

Sir, — I know of no misery but a jail to which my 
own imprudences and your letter seem to point. I 
have seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, 
by heavens ! request it as a favor — as a favor that 
may prevent something more fatal. I have been some 
years struggling with a wretched being — with all that 
contempt that indigence brings with it — with all those 
passions which make contempt insupportable. What, 
then, has a jail that is formidable? I shall at least 
have the society of wretches, and such is to me true 
society. I tell you, again and again, that I am neither 
able nor willing to pay you a farthing, but I will be 
punctual to any appointment you or the tailor shall 
make ; thus far, at least, I do not act the sharper, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 101 

since, unable to pay my own debts one way, I would 
generally give some security another. No, sir; had 
I been a sharper — had I been possessed of less good- 
nature and native generosity, I might surely now have 
been in better circumstances. 

I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty 
unavoidably brings with it : my reflections are filled 
with repentance for my imprudence, but not with any 
remorse for being a villain : that may be a character 
you unjustly charge me with. Your books, I can 
assure you, are neither pawned nor sold, but in the 
custody of a friend, from whom my necessities obliged 
me to borrow some money: whatever becomes of my 
person, you shall have them in a month. It is very 
possible both the reports you heard and your own 
suggestions may have brought you false information 
with respect to my character; it is very possible that 
the man whom you now regard with detestation may 
inwardly burn with grateful resentment. It is very 
possible that, upon a second perusal of the letter I sent 
you, you may see the workings of a mind strongly 
agitated with gratitude and jealousy. If such circum- 
stances should appear, at least spare invective till my 
book with Mr. Dodsley shall be published, and then, 
perhaps, you may see the bright side of a mind, when 
my professions shall not appear the dictates of neces- 
sity, but of choice. 

You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. Per- 
haps so ; but he was a man I shall ever honor ; but I 
have friendships only with the dead! I ask pardon 
for taking up so much time ; nor shall I add to it by 
any other professions than that I am, sir, your hum- 
ble servant, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 



102 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

P. S. — I shall expect impatiently the result of 
your resolutions. 

The dispute between the poet and the publisher 
was afterward imperfectly adjusted, and it would ap- 
pear that the clothes were paid for by a short com- 
pilation advertised by Griffiths in the course of the 
following month ; but the parties x were never really 
friends afterward, and the writings of Goldsmith were 
harshly and unjustly treated in the "Monthly Re- 
view." 

We have given the preceding anecdote in detail, as 
furnishing one of the many instances in which Gold- 
smith's prompt and benevolent impulses outran all 
prudent forecast, and involved him in difficulties and 
disgraces which a more selfish man would have 
avoided. The pawning of the clothes, charged upon 
him as a crime by the grinding bookseller, and appar- 
ently admitted by him as one of "the meannesses 
which poverty unavoidably brings with it," resulted, 
as we have shown, from a tenderness of heart and 
generosity of hand, in which another man would have 
gloried; but these were such natural elements with 
him, that he was unconscious of their merit. It is a 
pity that wealth does not oftener bring such "mean- 
nesses " in its train. 

And now let us be indulged in a few particulars 
about these lodgings in which Goldsmith was guilty 
of this thoughtless act of benevolence. They were 
in a very shabby house, No. 12 Green Arbor Court, 
between the Old Bailey and Fleet Market. An old 

1 " Mr. B , in making a contract or going into an ' opera- 
tion,' is a party; but in his house or yours he is a person." — Rich- 
ard Grant White. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 103 

woman was still living in 1820 who was a relative of 
the identical landlady whom Goldsmith relieved by 
the money received from the pawnbroker. She was 
a child about seven years of age at the time that the 
poet rented his apartment of her relative, and used 
frequently to be at the house in Green Arbor Court. 
She was drawn there, in a great measure, by the 
good-humored kindness of Goldsmith, who was always 
exceedingly fond of the society of children. He used 
to assemble those of the family in his room, give them 
cakes and sweetmeats, and set them dancing to the 
sound of his flute. He was very friendly to those 
around him, and cultivated a kind of intimacy with a 
watchmaker in the court, who possessed much native 
wit and humor. He passed most of the day, however, 
in his room, and only went out in the evenings. His 
days were no doubt devoted to the drudgery of the 
pen, and it would appear that he occasionally found 
the booksellers urgent task-masters. On one occasion 
a visitor was shown up to his room, and immediately 
their voices were heard in high altercation, and the 
key was turned within the lock. The landlady, at first, 
was disposed to go to the assistance of her lodger; 
but a calm succeeding, she forbore to interfere. 

Late in the evening the door was unlocked ; a sup- 
per ordered by the visitor from a neighboring tavern, 
and Goldsmith and his intrusive guest finished the 
evening in great good-humor. It was probably his 
old task-master Griffiths, whose press might have been 
waiting, and who found no other mode of getting a 
stipulated task from Goldsmith than by locking him 
in, and staying by him until it was finished. 

But we have a more particular account of these 
lodgings in Green Arbor Court from the Rev. Thomas 



104 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Percy, 1 afterward Bishop of Dromore, 2 and cele- 
brated for his relics of ancient poetry, his beautiful 
ballads, and other works. During an occasional visit 
to London, he was introduced to Goldsmith by 
Grainger, 3 and ever after continued one of his most 
steadfast and valued friends. The following is his 
description of the poet's squalid apartment: "I called 
on Goldsmith at his lodgings in March, 1759, and 
found him writing his ' Inquiry, ' in a miserable, dirty- 
looking room, in which there was but one chair ; and 
when, from civility, he resigned it to me, he himself 
was obliged to sit in the window. While we were 
conversing together, some one tapped gently at the 
door, and, being desired to come in, a poor ragged 
little girl, of a very becoming demeanor, entered the 
room, and, dropping a courtesy, said, ' My mamma 
sends her compliments, and begs the favor of you to 
lend her a chamber-pot full of coals.' ' 

We are reminded in this anecdote of Goldsmith's 
picture of the lodgings of Beau Tibbs, and of the peep 
into the secrets of a make-shift establishment given to 
a visitor by the blundering old Scotchwoman. 

"By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs 
would permit us to ascend, till we came to what he 
was facetiously pleased to call the first floor down the 
chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from 
within demanded, 'Who's there?' My conductor 
answered that it was him. But this not satisfying 
the querist, the voice again repeated the demand, to 

1 (1729-1811). Editor of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 
or Percy's Reliques. He was a member of the celebrated Percy 
family and a kinsman of the Earl of Northumberland. See 
page 161. 2 Ireland. 

8 James Grainger, a Scottish physician and poet who lived in 
London from 1753 to. 1759. Then he migrated to the West Indies, 
where he died in 1766. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 105 

which he answered louder than before; and now the 
door was opened by an old woman with cautious re- 
luctance. 

"When we got in, he welcomed me to his house 
with great ceremony ; and, turning to the old woman, 
asked where was her lady. ' Good troth,' replied 
she, in a peculiar dialect, ' she 's washing your twa 
shirts at the next door, because they have taken an 
oath against lending the tub any longer. ' ' My two 
shirts,' cried he, in a tone that faltered with confu- 
sion ; ' what does the idiot mean ? ' 4 I ken what I 
mean weel enough,' replied the other; ' she 's washing 
your twa shirts at the next door, because ' — ' Fire 
and fury ! no more of thy stupid explanations, ' cried 
he ; 'go and inform her we have company. Were 
that Scotch hag to be forever in my family, she 
would never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd 
poisonous accent of hers, or testify the smallest speci- 
men of breeding or high life; and yet it is very sur- 
prising too, as I had her from a Parliament man, a 
friend of mine from the Highlands, one of the politest 
men in the world; but that 's a secret.' " 1 

Let us linger a little in Green Arbor Court, a place 
consecrated by the genius and the poverty of Gold- 
smith, but recently obliterated in the course of mod- 
ern improvements. The writer of this memoir visited 
it not many years since on a literary pilgrimage, and 
may be excused for repeating a description of it which 
he has heretofore inserted in another publication. 
"It then existed in its pristine state, and was a small 
square of tall and miserable houses, the very intes- 
tines of which seemed turned inside out, to judge 
from the old garments and frippery 2 that fluttered 

1 Citizen of the World, letter iv. 2 Cast-off garments. 



106 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

from every window. It appeared to be a region of 
washerwomen, and lines were stretched about the lit- 
tle square, on which clothes were dangling to dry. 

"Just as we entered the square, a scuffle took place 
between two viragoes about a disputed right to a. 
washtub, and immediately the whole community was 
in a hubbub. Heads in mob-caps 1 popped out of 
every window, and such a clamor of tongues ensued 
that I was fain to stop my ears. Every Amazon took 
part with one or other of the disputants, and bran- 
dished her arms, dripping with soapsuds, and fired 
away from her window as from the embrasure 2 of a 
fortress ; while the screams of children nestled and 
cradled in every procreant chamber of this hive, wak- 
ing with the noise, set up their shrill pipes to swell 
the general concert." 3 

While in these forlorn quarters, suffering under 
extreme depression of spirits, caused by his failure 
at Surgeons' Hall, the disappointment of his hopes, 
and his harsh collisions with Griffiths, Goldsmith 
wrote the following letter to his brother Henry, some 
parts of which are most touchingly mournful. 

Dear Sir, — Your punctuality in answering a 
man whose trade is writing, is more than I had reason 
to expect; and yet you see me generally fill a whole 
sheet, which is all the recompense I can make for 
being so frequently troublesome. The behavior of 
Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawder is a little extraordinary. 
However, their answering neither you nor me is a 

1 A mob-cap: I mean a cap, much more common then than now, 
with side-pieces, fastening under the chin. — Dickens, David Cop- 
perfield, xiii. 

2 An opening in the wall, through which guns are fired. 

3 Tales of a Traveller. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 107 

sufficient indication of their disliking the employment 
which I assigned them. As their conduct is different 
from what I had expected, so I have made an altera- 
tion in mine. I shall, the beginning of next month, 
send over two hundred and fifty books, 1 which are all 
that I fancy can be well sold among you, and I would 
have you make some distinction in the persons who 
have subscribed. The money, which will amount to 
sixty pounds, may be left with Mr. Bradley as soon 
as possible. I am not certain but I shall quickly have 
occasion for it. 

I have met with no disappointment with respect to 
my East India voyage, nor are my resolutions altered; 
though, at the same time, I must confess, it gives me 
some pain to think I am almost beginning the world 
at the age of thirty-one. Though I never had a day's 
sickness since I saw you, yet I am not that strong, 
active man you once knew me. You scarcely can 
conceive how much eight years of disappointment, 
anguish, and study have worn me down. If I remem- 
ber right, you are seven or eight years older than me, 
yet I dare venture to say, that, if a stranger saw us 
both, he would pay me the honors of seniority. Ima- 
gine to yourself a pale, melancholy visage, with two 
great wrinkles between the eyebrows, with an eye dis- 
gustingly severe, and a big wig, and you may have 
a perfect picture of my present appearance. On the 
other hand, I conceive you as perfectly sleek and 
healthy, passing many a happy day among your own 
children, or those who knew you a child. 

Since I knew what it was to be a man, this is a 
pleasure I have not known. I have passed my days 

1 The Inquiry into Polite Literature. His previous remarks 
apply to the subscription. 



108 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

among a parcel of cool, designing beings, and have 
contracted all their suspicious manner in my own be- 
havior. I should actually be as unfit for the society 
of my friends at home, as I detest that which I am 
obliged to partake of here. I can now neither par- 
take of the pleasure of a revel, nor contribute to raise 
its jollity. 1 can neither laugh nor drink; have con- 
tracted a hesitating, disagreeable manner of speaking, 
and a visage that looks ill-nature itself; in short, I 
have thought myself into a settled melancholy, and 
an utter disgust of all that life brings with it. 
Whence this romantic turn that all our family are 
possessed with? Whence this love for every place 
and every country but that in which we reside — for 
every occupation but our own? this desire of fortune, 
and yet this eagerness to dissipate? I perceive, my 
dear sir, that I am at intervals for indulging this 
splenetic manner, and following my own taste, re- 
gardless of yours. 

The reasons you have given me for breeding up 
your son a scholar are judicious and convincing; I 
should, however, be glad to know for what particular 
profession he is designed. If he be assiduous and 
divested of strong passions (for passions in youth 
always lead to pleasure), he may do very well in your 
college; for it must be owned that the industrious 
poor have good encouragement there, perhaps better 
than in any other in Europe. But if he has ambition, 
strong passions, and an exquisite sensibility of con- 
tempt, do not send him there, unless you have no 
other trade for him but your own. It is impossible 
to conceive how much may be done by proper educa- 
tion at home. A boy, for instance, who understands 
perfectly well Latin, French, arithmetic, and the prin- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 109 

ciples of the civil law, and can write a fine hand, has 
an education that may qualify him for any undertak- 
ing; and these parts of learning should be carefully 
inculcated, let him be designed for whatever calling 
he will. 

Above all things, let him never touch a romance or 
novel: these paint beauty in colors more charming 
than nature, and describe happiness that man never 
tastes. How delusive, how destructive are those pic- 
tures of consummate bliss ! They teach the youthful 
mind to sigh after beauty and happiness that never 
existed ; to despise the little good which fortune has 
mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever 
gave; and, in general, take the word of a man who 
has seen the world, and who has studied human na- 
ture more by experience than precept; take my word 
for it, I say, that books teach us very little of the 
world. The greatest merit in a state of poverty 
would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous — 
may distress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and 
even avarice, in the lower orders of mankind, are true 
ambition. These afford the only ladder for the poor 
to rise to preferment. Teach then, my dear sir, to 
your son, thrift and economy. Let his poor wander- 
ing uncle's example be placed before his eyes. I had 
learned from books to be disinterested and generous, 
before I was taught from experience the necessity of 
being prudent. I had contracted the habits and no- 
tions of a philosopher, while I was exposing myself 
to the approaches of insidious cunning; and often by 
being, even with my narrow finances, charitable to 
excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and placed my- 
self in the very situation of the wretch who thanked 
me for my bounty. When I am in the remotest part 



110 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of the world, tell him this, and perhaps he may im- 
prove from my example. But I find myself again 
falling into my gloomy habits of thinking. 

My mother, I am informed, is almost blind ; even 
though I had the utmost inclination to return home, 
under such circumstances I could not ; for to behold 
her in distress without a capacity of relieving her 
from it, would add much to my splenetic habit. Your 
last letter was much too short ; it should have answered 
some queries I had made in my former. Just sit 
down as I do, and write forward until you have filled 
all your paper. It requires no thought, at least from 
the ease with which my own sentiments rise when 
they are addressed to you. For, believe me, my head 
has no share in all I write; my heart dictates the 
whole. Pray give my love to Bob Bryan ton, and 
entreat him from me not to drink. My dear sir, 
give me some account about poor Jenny. 1 Yet her 
husband loves her : if so, she cannot be unhappy. 

I know not whether I should tell you — yet why 
should I conceal these trifles, or, indeed, anything 
from you ? There is a book of mine will be published 
in a few days : the life of a very extraordinary man ; 
no less than the great Voltaire. You know already 
by the title that it is no more than a catchpenny. 
However, I spent but four weeks on the whole per- 
formance, for which I received twenty pounds. 
When published, I shall take some method of con- 
veying it to you, unless you may think it dear of the 
postage, which may amount to four or five shillings. 
However, I fear you will not find an equivalent of 
amusement. 

1 His sister, Mrs. Johnston; her marriage, like that of Mrs. 
Hodson, was private, but in pecuniary matters much less fortu- 
nate. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Ill 

Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short ; you 
should have given me your opinion of the design of 
the heroi -comical poem which I sent you. You re- 
member I intended to introduce the hero of the poem 
as lying in a paltry alehouse. You may take the 
following specimen of the manner, which I flatter 
myself is quite original. The room in which he lies 
may be described somewhat in this way : — 

" The window, patched with paper, lent a ray 
That feebly show'd the state in which he lay; 
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread, 
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread; 
The game of goose 1 was there exposed to view, 
And the twelve rules the royal martyr 2 drew; 
The Seasons, framed with listing, 3 found a place, 
And Prussia's monarch 4 show'd his lamp-black face. 
The morn was cold: he views with keen desire 
A rusty grate unconscious of a fire ; 
An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored, 
And five crack'd tea-cups dress'd the chimney-board." 

And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord 
to make his appearance in order to dun him for the 
reckoning : — 

" Not with that face, so servile and so gay, 
That welcomes every stranger that can pay: 

1 A game of chance, once common in England. 

2 Charles I. His twelve rules were: 1. Urge no healths. 
2. Profane no divine ordinances. 3. Touch no state matters. 
4. Reveal no secrets. 5. Pick no quarrels. 6. Make no com- 
panions. 7. Maintain no ill opinions. 8. Keep no bad company. 
9. Encourage no vice. 10. Make no long meals. 11. Repeat 
no grievances. 12. Lay no wagers. The Deserted Village, line 
232, reads, — 

" The twelve good rales, the royal game of goose." 

3 A border of cloth. 

4 Probably Frederick the Great (l7l2-178G). 



112 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

With sulky eye he smoked l the patient man, 

Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began," etc. 2 

All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a 
good remark of Montaigne's, 3 that the wisest men 
often have friends with whom they do not care how 
much they play the fool. Take my present follies as 
instances of my regard. Poetry is a much easier and 
more agreeable species of composition than prose; 
and, could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant 
employment to be a poet. I am resolved to leave no 
space, though I should fill it. up only by telling you, 
what you very well know already, I mean that I am 
your most affectionate friend and brother, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

The "Life of Voltaire," alluded to in the latter 
part of the preceding letter, was the literary job un- 
dertaken to satisfy the demands of Griffiths. It was 
to have preceded a translation of the "Henriade," 4 
by Ned Purdon, Goldsmith's old schoolmate, now a 
Grub- Street writer, who starved rather than lived by 
the exercise of his pen, and often tasked Goldsmith's 
scanty means to relieve his hunger. His miserable 
career was summed up by our poet in the following 
lines written some years after the time we are treat- 
ing of, on hearing that he had suddenly dropped 
dead in Smithfield : 5 — 

1 Ridiculed. The word is used also in the Vicar of Wakefield, 
Riverside Literature Series, page 46. 

2 The projected poem, of which the above are specimens, 
appears never to have been completed. 

3 Michel de Montaigne, 1533-1592. The first essayist, in the 
modern meaning of the word. 4 An epic poem by Voltaire. 

6 A recreation ground and market in London. Heretics were 
burned here in the time of Queen Mary. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 113 

" Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, 
Who long was a bookseller's hack: 
He led such a damnable life in this world, 
I don't think he '11 wish to come back." 

The memoir and translation, though advertised to 
form a volume, were not published together, but ap- 
peared separately in a magazine. 

As to the heroi-comical poem, also cited in the 
foregoing letter, it appears to have perished in em- 
bryo. Had it been brought to maturity, we should 
have had further traits of autobiography; the room 
already described was probably his own squalid quar- 
ters in Green Arbor Court ; and in a subsequent mor- 
sel of the poem we have the poet himself, under the 
euphonious name of Scroggin : — 

" Where the Red Lion, peering o'er the way, 
Invites each passing stranger that can pay; 
Where Calvert's butt and Parson's black champagne 
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane: l 
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 
The muse found Scroggin stretch'd beneath a rug; 
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, 2 
A cap by night, a stocking all the day ! " 

It is to be regretted that this poetical conception 
was not carried out; like the author's other writings, 
it might have abounded with pictures of life and 
touches of nature drawn from his own observation 
and experience, and mellowed by his own humane and 
tolerant spirit; and might have been a worthy com- 
panion or rather contrast to his "Traveller" and 
"Deserted Village," and have remained in the lan- 
guage a first-rate specimen of the mock-heroic. 

1 Once a respectable street, iD Goldsmith's time lost to respect- 
ability. Drury Laue Theatre (1663) is still a famous place. 

2 Bay = laurel. A wreath of laurel, in ancient Greece, was a 
successful poet's reward. 



114 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Publication of " The Inquiry." — Attack by Griffiths' Review. — 
Kenrick the Literary Ishraaelite. — Periodical Literature. 
— Goldsmith's Essays. — Garrick as a Manager. — Smollett 
and his Schemes. — Change of Lodgings. — The Robin Hood 
Club. 

Towards the end of March, 1759, the treatise on 
which Goldsmith had laid so much stress, on which 
he at one time had calculated to defray the expenses 
of his outfit to India, and to which he had adverted 
in his correspondence with Griffiths, made its appear- 
ance. It was published by the Dodsleys, and entitled 
"An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learn- 
ing in Europe." 

In the present day, when the whole field of con- 
temporary literature is so widely surveyed and amply 
discussed, and when the current productions of every 
country are constantly collated and ably criticised, a 
treatise like that of Goldsmith would be considered 
as extremely limited and unsatisfactory ; but at that 
time it possessed novelty in its views and wideness in 
its scope, and being imbued with the peculiar charm 
of style inseparable from the author, it commanded 
public attention and a profitable sale. As it was the 
most important production that had yet come from 
Goldsmith's pen, he was anxious to have the credit 
of it; yet it appeared without his name on the title- 
page. The authorship, however, was well known 
throughout the world of letters, and the author had 
now grown into sufficient literary importance to be- 
come an object of hostility to the underlings of the 
press. One of the most virulent attacks upon him 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 115 

was in a criticism on this treatise, and appeared in 
the "Monthly Keview," to which he himself had 
been recently a contributor. It slandered him as a 
man while it decried him as an author, and accused 
him, by innuendo, of "laboring under the infamy of 
having, by the vilest and meanest actions, forfeited 
all pretensions to honor and honesty," and of prac- 
tising "those acts which bring the sharper to the 
cart's tail or the pillory." 

It will be remembered that the Keview was owned 
by Griffiths the bookseller, with whom Goldsmith 
had recently had a misunderstanding. The criticism, 
therefore, was no doubt dictated by the lingerings of 
resentment ; and the imputations upon Goldsmith's 
character for honor and honesty, and the vile and 
mean actions hinted at, could only allude to the un- 
fortunate pawning of the clothes. All this, too, was 
after Griffiths had received the affecting letter from 
Goldsmith, drawing a picture of his poverty and per- 
plexities, and after the latter had made him a literary 
compensation. Griffiths, in fact, was sensible of the 
falsehood and extravagance of the attack, and tried 
to exonerate himself by declaring that the criticism 
was written by a person in his employ; but we see 
no difference in atrocity between him who wields the 
knife and him who hires the cut-throat. It may be 
well, however, in passing, to bestow our mite of no- 
toriety upon the miscreant who launched the slander. 
He deserves it for a long course of dastardly and 
venomous attacks, not merely upon Goldsmith, but 
upon most of the successful authors of the day. His 
name was Kenrick. He was originally a mechanic, 
but possessing some degree of talent and industry, 
applied himself to literature as a profession. This he 



116 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

pursued for many years, and tried his hand in every 
department of prose and poetry; he wrote plays and 
satires, philosophical tracts, critical dissertations, and 
works on philology ; nothing from his pen ever rose 
to first-rate excellence, or gained him a popular 
name, though he received from some university the 
degree of Doctor of Laws. Dr. Johnson 1 character- 
ized his literary career in one short sentence. "Sir, 
he is one of the many who have made themselves 
public without making themselves known" 

Soured by his own want of success, jealous of the 
success of others, his natural irritability of temper 
increased by habits of intemperance, he at length 
abandoned himself to the practice of reviewing, and 
became one of the Ishmaelites 2 of the press. In this 
his malignant bitterness soon gave him a notoriety 
which his talents had never been able to attain. 
We shall dismiss him for the present with the fol- 
lowing sketch of him by the hand of one of his 
contemporaries : — 

" Dreaming of genius which he never had, 
Half wit, half fool, half critic, and half mad ; 
Seizing, like Shirley, 8 on the poet's lyre, 
With all his rage, but not one spark of fire ; 

1 Samuel Johnson, an English essayist, lexicographer, and poet 
(1709-1784). As a writer, he is best known as the author of 
the famous Dictionary and of the Lives of the Poets. He has been 
called the literary " dictator " of his time. Boswell's Life has 
done much to immortalize him. He was a leading member of 
the "Literary Club." It was Dr. Johnson who sold the manu- 
script of the Vicar of Wakefield for Goldsmith. 

2 Ishmael's " hand will be against every man, and every man's 
hand against him." Gen. xvi. 12. 

8 London, 1596-1666. " He has no great plays, hardly any 
great scenes, and not many distinguished passages." — Saintsbury. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 117 

Eager for slaughter, and resolved to tear 

From other's brows that wreath he must not wear — 

Next Kenrick came : all furious and replete 

With brandy, malice, pertness, and conceit ; 

Unskill'd in classic lore, through envy blind 

To all that 's beauteous, learned, or refined : 

For faults alone behold the savage prowl, 

With reason's offal glut his ravening soul ; 

Pleased with his prey, its inmost blood he drinks, 

And mumbles, paws, and turns it — till it stinks." 1 

The British press about this time was extrava- 
gantly fruitful of periodical publications. That 
"oldest inhabitant," the "Gentleman's Magazine," 
almost coeval with St. John's gate which graced its 
title-page, had long been elbowed by magazines and 
reviews of all kinds: Johnson's "Rambler" 2 had 
introduced the fashion of periodical essays, which he 
had followed up in his "Adventurer" 2 and "Idler." 2 
Imitations had sprung up on every side, under every 
variety of name; until British literature was entirely 
overrun by a weedy and transient efflorescence. 
Many of these rival periodicals choked each other 
almost at the outset, and few of them have escaped 
oblivion. 

Goldsmith wrote for some of the most success- 
ful, such as the "Bee," the "Busy-body," and the 
"Lady's Magazine." His essays, though character- 
ized by his delightful style, his pure, benevolent 

1 From The Race, by Cuthbert Shaw (1739-1771), who wrote 
under the pen name of Mercurius Spur. The poet satirizes the 
writers of his age. 

2 The Rambler and The Idler were periodicals after the general 
style of The Tatler and Spectator, and were controlled by Dr. 
Johnson. The Adventurer was " a sort of imitation of The Ram- 
bler, edited by Hawkesworth, the great ape of Johnson, and con- 
tributed to by Johnson himself." — Saintsbury. 



118 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

morality, and his mellow, unobtrusive humor, did 
not produce equal effect at first with more garish 
writings of infinitely less value; they did not "strike," 
as it is termed ; but they had that rare and enduring 
merit which rises in estimation on every perusal. 
They gradually stole upon the heart of the public, 
were copied into numerous contemporary publica- 
tions, and now they are garnered up among the 
choice productions of British literature. 

In his "Inquiry into the State of Polite Learn- 
ing," Goldsmith had given offence to David Garrick, 
at that time autocrat of the drama, and was doomed 
to experience its effect. A clamor had been raised 
against Garrick for exercising a despotism over the 
stage, and bringing forward nothing but old plays 
to the exclusion of original productions. Walpole 1 
joined in this charge. "Garrick," said he, "is 
treating the town as it deserves and likes to be 
treated, — with scenes, fire-works, and his own writ- 
ings. A good new play I never expect to see more ; 
nor have seen since the ' Provoked Husband, ' 2 which 
came out when I was at school." Goldsmith, who 
was extremely fond of the theatre, and felt the evils 
of this system, inveighed in his treatise against the 
wrongs experienced by authors at the hands of man- 
agers. "Our poet's performance," said he, "must 
undergo a process truly chemical before it is presented 

1 Horace Walpole (1717-1797), son of Sir Kobert Walpole, 
was an English author and letter-writer. His Castle of Otranto 
was once a famous romance. See Macaulay's essay on Wal- 
pole' 's Letters. 

2 A comedy begun by Sir John Vanbrugh, who died in 1728. 
It was finished by Colley Cibber, who became poet laureate in 
1730, and was published in 1728. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 119 

to the public. It must be tried in the manager's fire ; 
strained through a licenser, suffer from repeated cor- 
rections, till it may be a mere caput mortuum 1 when 
it arrives before the public." Again, "Getting a 
play on even in three or four years is a privilege 
reserved only for the happy few who have the arts 
of courting the manager as well as the Muse; who 
have adulation to please his vanity, powerful patrons 
to support their merit, or money to indemnify disap- 
pointment. Our Saxon ancestors had but one name 
for a wit and a witch. I will not dispute the pro- 
priety of uniting those characters then ; but the man 
who under present discouragements ventures to write 
for the stage, whatever claim he may have to the 
appellation of a wit, at least has no right to be called 
a conjurer." But a passage which perhaps touched 
more sensibly than all the rest on the sensibilities of 
Garrick, was the following : — 

" I have no particular spleen against the fellow who 
sweeps the stage with the besom, or the hero who 
brushes it with his train. It were a matter of indif- 
ference to me, whether our heroines are in keeping, 
or our candle -snuffers burn their fingers, did not 
such make a great part of public care and polite con- 
versation. Our actors assume all that state off the 
stage which they do on it; and, to use an expression 
borrowed from the green-room 2 every one is up in 
his part. I am sorry to say it, they seem to forget 
their real characters." 3 

1 " Literally, dead head ; it was a term used by old chemists to 
denote that which was left when all the volatile elements had 
escaped." — Century Dictionary. 

2 The room where the actors dress for the stage. It was 
formerly painted green. 

3 This and the preceding quotation are from the Inquiry, ch. xii. 



120 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

These strictures were considered by Garrick as 
intended for himself, and they were rankling in his 
mind when Goldsmith waited upon him and solicited 
his vote for the vacant secretaryship of the Society 
of Arts, 1 of which the manager was a member. 
Garrick, puffed up by his dramatic renown and his 
intimacy with the great, and knowing Goldsmith 
only by his budding reputation, may not have con- 
sidered him of sufficient importance to be conciliated. 
In reply to his solicitations, he observed that he 
could hardly expect his friendly exertions after the 
unprovoked attack he had made upon his manage- 
ment. Goldsmith replied that he had indulged in no 
personalities, and had only spoken what he believed 
to be the truth. He made no further apology nor 
application; failed to get the appointment, and con- 
sidered Garrick his enemy. In the second edition of 
his treatise he expunged or modified the passages 
which had given the manager offence; but though 
the author and actor became intimate in after years, 
this false step at the outset of their intercourse was 
never forgotten. 

About this time Goldsmith engaged with Dr. 
Smollett, who was about to launch the "British 
Magazine." Smollett was a complete schemer and 
speculator in literature, and intent upon enterprises 
that had money rather than reputation in view. 
Goldsmith has a good-humored hit at this propensity 
in one of his papers in the "Bee," 2 in which he re- 
presents Johnson, Hume, 3 and others taking seats in 

1 This was "The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, 
Manufactures, and Commerce," established in 1754. 

2 No. 5. 

3 David Hume (1711-1776), a famous Scottish philosopher 
and historian. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 121 

the stage-coach bound for Fame, while Smollett pre- 
fers that destined for Riches. 

Another prominent employer of Goldsmith was 
Mr. John Newbery, who engaged him to contribute 
occasional essays to a newspaper entitled the "Public 
Ledger," which made its first appearance on the 12th 
of January, 1760. His most valuable and character- 
istic contributions to this paper were his "Chinese 
Letters," subsequently modified into the "Citizen of 
the World." These lucubrations attracted general 
attention; they were reprinted in the various peri- 
odical publications of the day, and met with great 
applause. The name of the author, however, was as 
yet but little known. 

Being now easier in circumstances, and in the 
receipt of frequent sums from the booskellers, Gold- 
smith, about the middle of 1760, emerged from his 
dismal abode in Green Arbor Court, and took respect- 
able apartments in Wine-Office Court, Fleet Street. 

Still he continued to look back with considerable 
benevolence to the poor hostess whose necessities he 
had relieved by pawning his gala coat, for we are 
told that "he often supplied her with food from his 
own table, and visited her frequently with the sole 
purpose to be kind to her." 

He now became a member of a debating club, 
called the Robin Hood, which used to meet near Tem- 
ple Bar, and in which Burke, while yet a Temple 
student, had first tried his powers. Goldsmith spoke 
here occasionally, and is recorded in the Robin Hood 
archives as "a candid disputant with a clear head 
and an honest heart, though coming but seldom to 
the society." His relish was for clubs of a more 
social, jovial nature, and he was never fond of argu- 



122 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

ment. An amusing anecdote is told of his first intro- 
duction to the club, by Samuel Derrick, an Irish 
acquaintance of some humor. On entering, Gold- 
smith was struck with the self-important appearance 
of the chairman ensconced in a large gilt chair. 
"This," said he, "must be the Lord Chancellor 1 at 
least." "No, no," replied Derrick, "he 's only mas- 
ter of the rolls" 1 The chairman was a baker. 



CHAPTER XII 

New Lodgings. — Visits of Ceremony. — Hangers-on. — Pilking- 
ton and the White Mouse. — Introduction to Dr. Johnson. — 
Davies and his Bookshop. — Pretty Mrs. Davies. — Foote and 
his Projects. — Criticism of the Cudgel. 

In his new lodgings in Wine-Office Court, Gold- 
smith began to receive visits of ceremony, and to 
entertain his literary friends. 2 Among the latter he 

1 The Lord Chancellor is the highest judicial officer of Great 
Britain, and an important member of the Cabinet. He ranks 
above all peers except royal princes and the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury. He presides over the House of Lords, also in the Chan- 
cery Division of the Supreme Court. The Master of the Rolls 
is now a judge in the Chancery Division, ranking next to the 
Chancellor there. The Lord Chief Justice is the only other 
judicial officer of superior dignity. 

2 Goldsmith's companions seem to have been of his own type. 
William Guthrie (1708-1770) was a Scotchman who had drifted 
to London, where he worked for forty years as a political, his- 
torical, and miscellaneous writer. His Historical and Geographi- 
cal Grammar ran through twenty-four editions. Arthur Murphy 
(1727-1805) was born near Goldsmith's early home, Elpbin, 
Ireland. His last years were spent in London as an actor and 
dramatist. Christopher Smart (1722-1770 or 1771) came from 
Kent. He produced some " decent hack work, a good deal of 
intentionally serious matter of no value, and a few light pieces." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 123 

now numbered several names of note, such as Guth- 
rie, Murphy, Christopher Smart, and Bickerstaff. 
He had also a numerous class of hangers-on, the 
small fry of literature ; who, knowing his almost utter 
incapacity to refuse a pecuniary request, were apt, 
now that he was considered flush, to levy continual 
taxes upon his purse. 

Among others, one Pilkington, an old college ac- 
quaintance, but now a shifting adventurer, duped him 
in the most ludicrous manner. He called on him 
with a face full of perplexity. A lady of the first 
rank having an extraordinary fancy for curious ani- 
mals, for which she was willing to give enormous 
sums, he had procured a couple of white mice to be 
forwarded to her from India. They were actually 
on board of a ship in the river. Her grace had been 
apprised of their arrival, and was all impatience to 
see them. Unfortunately, he had no cage to put 
them in, nor clothes to appear in before a lady of her 
rank. Two guineas would be sufficient for his pur- 
pose, but where were two guineas to be procured ! 

The simple heart of Goldsmith was touched; but, 
alas ! he had but half a guinea in his pocket. It was 
unfortunate, but, after a pause, his friend suggested, 
with some hesitation, "that money might be raised 
upon his watch : it would but be the loan of a few 
hours." So said, so done; the watch was delivered 
to the worthy Mr. Pilkington to be pledged at a 

He was mildly insane during the last of his life. Isaac Bick- 
erstaff was born in Ireland in 1735. When and where he died 
are not certainly known. He was a page to Lord Chesterfield ; 
then he became an officer of marines, but was discharged from 
the latter office for some offence. He wrote some popular com- 
edies and light musical pieces for Garrick. 



124 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

neighboring pawnbroker's, but nothing farther was 
ever seen of him, the watch, or the white mice. The 
next that Goldsmith heard of the poor shifting scape- 
grace, he was on his death-bed, starving with want, 
upon which, forgetting or forgiving the trick he had 
played upon him, he sent him a guinea. Indeed he 
used often to relate with great humor the foregoing 
anecdote of his credulity, and was ultimately in some 
degree indemnified by its suggesting to him the amu- 
sing little story of Prince Bonbennin and the White 
Mouse in the "Citizen of the World." 1 

In this year Goldsmith became personally ac- 
quainted with Dr. Johnson, toward whom he was 
drawn by strong sympathies, though their natures 
were widely different. Both had struggled from 
early life with poverty, but had struggled in different 
ways. Goldsmith, buoyant, heedless, sanguine, tol- 
erant of evils, and easily pleased, had shifted along 
by any temporary expedient; cast down at every 
turn, but rising again with indomitable good-hu- 
mor, and still carried forward by his talent at hop- 
ing. Johnson, melancholy and hypochondriacal, and 
prone to apprehend the worst, yet sternly resolute to 
battle with and conquer it, had made his way dog- 
gedly and gloomily, but with a noble principle of 
self-reliance and a disregard of foreign aid. Both 
had been irregular at college : Goldsmith, as we have 
shown, from the levity of his nature and his social 
and convivial habits ; Johnson, from his acerbity and 
gloom. When, in after life, the latter heard himself 
spoken of as gay and frolicsome at college, because 
he had joined in some riotous excesses there, "Ah, 
sir!" replied he, "I was mad and violent. It was 
1 Letters No. xlviii. and xlix. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 125 

bitterness which they mistook for frolic. / was -//lit- 
erally poor, and J thought to fight my way by my 
literature and my wit. So I disregarded all power 
and all authority." 

Goldsmith's poverty was never accompanied by 
bitterness: but neither was it accompanied by the 
guardian pride which kept Johnson from falling into 
the degrading shifts of poverty. Goldsmith had an 
unfortunate facility at borrowing, and helping him- 
self along by the contributions of his friends : no 
doubt trusting, in his hopeful way. of one day mak- 
ing retribution. Johnson never hoped, and therefore 
never borrowed. In his sternest trials he proudly 
bore the ills he could not master. In his youth, when 
some unknown friend, seeing his shoes completely 
worn out. left a new pair at his chamber door, he 
disdained to accept the boon, and threw them away. 

Though like Goldsmith an unmethodical student, 
he had imbibed deeper draughts of knowledge, and 
made himself a riper scholar. While Goldsmith's 
happy constitution and genial humors carried him 
abroad into sunshine and enjoyment, Johnson's phy- 
sical infirmities and mental gloom drove him upon 
himself, to the resources of reading and meditation; 
threw a deeper though darker enthusiasm into his 
mind, and stored a retentive memory with all kinds 
of knowledge. 

After several years of youth passed in the country 
as usher, teacher, and an occasional writer for the 
press, Johnson, when twenty-eight years of age. came 
up to London with a half-written tragedy in his 
pocket and David Garrick. late his pupil and several 
years his junior, as a companion, — both poor and 
penniless; both, like Goldsmith, seeking their for- 



126 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

tune in the metropolis. "We rode and tied," 1 said 
Garrick sportively in after years of prosperity, when 
he spoke of their humble wayfaring. "I came to 
London," said Johnson, "with twopence halfpenny 
in my pocket." "Eh, what's that you say?" cried 
Garrick, " with twopence halfpenny in your pocket ? " 
" Why, yes ♦. I came with twopence halfpenny in my 
pocket, and thou, Davy, with but three halfpence in 
thine." Nor was there much exaggeration in the pic- 
ture ; for so poor were they in purse and credit, that 
after their arrival they had with difficulty raised 
five pounds, by giving their joint note to a bookseller 
in the Strand. 

Many, many years had Johnson gone on obscurely 
in London, "fighting his way by his literature and 
his wit;" enduring all the hardships and miseries of 
a Grub-Street writer: so destitute at one time, that 
he and Savage 2 the poet had walked all night about 
St. James's Square, both too poor to pay for a night's 
lodging, yet both full of poetry and patriotism, and 
determined to stand by their country ; so shabby in 
dress at another time, that, when he dined at Cave's, 3 

1 Ride and tie, a method of travelling formerly much used by 
persons who had but one horse between them. The two travel- 
lers set out together, one on horseback, the other on foot. When 
the former has travelled the distance agreed on, he dismounts, 
ties his horse, and then proceeds on foot ; when the other comes 
up to the horse, he unties him, mounts, gallops on, passes his 
fellow-traveller, and in due time leaves the horse for his com- 
panion. 

2 Richard Savage, an English poet, made famous by his Life, 
written by Johnson. He died in a debtor's prison in Bristol in 
1743. His poem, " The Wanderer," may have been a model for 
Goldsmith's "Traveller." 

8 Edward Cave (1691-1753), a printer and bookseller of note, 
founder of the Gentleman' 's Magazine. In 1732 he began to 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 127 

his bookseller, when there was prosperous company, 
he could not make his appearance at table, but had 
his dinner handed to him behind a screen. 

Yet through all the long and dreary struggle, often 
diseased in mind as well as in body, he had been 
resolutely self-dependent, and proudly self -respectful ; 
he had fulfilled his college vow, he had "fought his 
way by his literature and wit." His "Rambler" and 
"Idler" had made him the great moralist of the age, 
and his "Dictionary and History of the English Lan- 
guage," that stupendous monument of individual 
labor, had excited the admiration of the learned 
world. He was now at the head of intellectual so- 
ciety ; and had become as distinguished by his con- 
versational as his literary powers. He had become 
as much an autocrat in his sphere as his fellow-way- 
farer and adventurer, Garrick, had become of the 
stage, and had been humorously dubbed by Smollett, 
"The Great Cham 1 of Literature." 

Such was Dr. Johnson, when on the 31st of May, 
1761, he was to make his appearance as a guest at 
a literary supper given by Goldsmith to a numerous 
party at his new lodgings in Wine-Office Court. It 
was the opening of their acquaintance. Johnson had 
felt and acknowledged the merit of Goldsmith as an 
author, and been pleased by the honorable mention 
made of himself in the "Bee" and the Chinese Let- 
ters. Dr. Percy called upon Johnson to take him 
to Goldsmith's lodgings; he found Johnson arrayed 

publish regular reports of proceedings in Parliament, written 
out from memory. Dr. Johnson was at one time employed to 
put the reports into literary shape. Cave was censured by Par- 
liament for publishing the reports. 
1 Title of a prince of Tartary. 



128 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

with unusual care in a new suit of clothes, a new 
hat, and a well-powdered wig; and could not but no- 
tice his uncommon spruceness. "Why, sir," replied 
Johnson, "I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great 
sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and de- 
cency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this 
night to show him a better example. " 

The acquaintance thus commenced ripened into 
intimacy in the course of frequent meetings in the 
shop of Davies, 1 the bookseller, in Russell Street, 
Coven t Garden. As this was one of the great lit- 
erary gossiping places of the day, especially to the 
circle over which Johnson presided, it is worthy of 
some specification. Mr. Thomas Davies, noted in 
after times as the biographer of,Garrick, had origi- 
nally been on the stage, and though a small man, had 
enacted tyrannical tragedy with a pomp and magnilo- 
quence beyond his size, if we may trust the descrip- 
tion given of him by Churchill 2 in the "Rosciad: " — 

" Statesman all over — in plots famous grown, 
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone" 

This unlucky sentence is said to have crippled him 
in the midst of his tragic career, and ultimately to 
have driven him from the stage. He carried into the 
bookselling craft somewhat of the grandiose manner 
of the stage, and was prone to be mouthy and mag- 
niloquent. 

1 Thomas Davies (1712-1785) was a bookseller and an actor. 
Hereafter his name will appear often, as he was associated in a 
business way with all the literary members of the " Literary 
Club." His wife, "pretty Mrs. Davies," was "both beautiful 
and virtuous." 

2 Charles Churchill (1731-1764) named his Rosciad (rosh'- 
iad) after Quintus Roscius, a Roman actor. It was a satire on 
the actors of the day. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 129 

Churchill had intimated that while on the stage 
he was more noted for his pretty wife than his good 
acting: — 

"With him came mighty Davies ; on my life, 
That fellow has a very pretty wife." 

"Pretty Mrs. Davies " continued to be the load- 
:: his Fortunes. Her tea-table became almost as 
much a literary lounge as her husband's shop. She 
found faror in the eyes of the Ursa Major 1 of litera- 
ture by her winning ways, as she poured out for him 
cups without stint of bis favorite beverage. Indeed 

a suggested that she was one leading cause of his 
habitual resort to this literary haunt. Others were 
drawn thither for the sa^r : ?rsation. 

and thus it became a resort of many of the notorieties 

ae day. Here might occasionally be seen Benn-r: 
La_ . Steevens, 3 Dr. Percy, celebrated 

for his ancient ballads, and sometimes War burton i in 
prelatic state. Garrick resorted to it for a time, but 
Boon grew shy and suspicious, declaring thar most of 
the authors who frequented Mr. Davies 's shop w. 
merely to abuse him. 

Foote. 5 the Aristophanes of the day, was a frequent 



1 Great Bear, a name sometimes given to Dr. Johnson. 

* See page 14o. 

* (1736-1800). The main business of his life was the study 
and annotation of Shakespeare's works. 

4 William Warburton (1698-1779) was made Bishop of 
Gloucester " 

* Samuel Foote (1720-1777) was an English dramatist and 
actor. He had great talent for mimicry, "taking on 
prominent personages of the day in his satirical entertainments. 
Aristophanes (about 150-380 b. c.) was the most accomplished 
of Greek comic poets, also a famous mimic. 



130 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

visitor; his broad face beaming with fun and wag- 
gery, and his satirical eye ever on the lookout for 
characters and incidents for his farces. He was 
struck with the odd habits and appearance of Johnson 
and Goldsmith, now so often brought together in 
Davies 's shop. He was about to put on the stage a 
farce called "The Orators," intended as a hit at the 
Eobin Hood debating club, and resolved to show up 
the two doctors in it for the entertainment of the 
town. 

"What is the common price of an oak stick, sir? " 
said Johnson to Davies. " Sixpence, " was the reply. 
"Why, then, sir, give me leave to send your servant 
to purchase a shilling one. I '11 have a double quan- 
tity, for I am told Foote means to take me off as he 
calls it, and I am determined the fellow shall not do 
it with impunity." 

Foote had no disposition to undergo the criticism 
of the cudgel wielded by such potent hands, so the 
farce of "The Orators" appeared without the carica- 
tures of the lexicographer and the essayist. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Oriental Projects. — Literary Jobs. — The Cherokee Chiefs. — 
Merry Islington and the White Conduit House. — Letters on 
the History of England. — James Boswell. — Dinner of Davies. 
— Anecdotes of Johnson and Goldsmith. 

Notwithstanding his growing success, Goldsmith 
continued to consider literature a mere makeshift, 
and his vagrant imagination teemed with schemes 
and plans of a grand but indefinite nature. One was 
for visiting the East and exploring the interior of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 131 

Asia. He had, as has been before observed, a vague 
notion that valuable discoveries were to be made 
there, and many useful inventions in the arts brought 
back to the stock of European knowledge. "Thus, in 
Siberian Tartary," observed he, in one of his writings, 
"the natives extract a strong spirit from milk, which 
is a secret probably unknown to the chemists of 
Europe. In the most savage parts of India they are 
possessed of the secret of dyeing vegetable substances 
scarlet, and that of refining lead into a metal which, 
for hardness and color, is little inferior to silver." 1 

Goldsmith adds a description of the kind of person 
suited to such an enterprise, in which he evidently 
had himself in view. 

"He should be a man of philosophical turn, one 
apt to deduce consequences of general utility from 
particular occurrences; neither swollen with pride, 
nor hardened by prejudice; neither wedded to one 
particular system, nor instructed only in one particu- 
lar science; neither wholly a botanist, nor quite an 
antiquarian; his mind should be tinctured with mis- 
cellaneous knowledge, and his manners humanized 
by an intercourse with men. He should be in some 
measure an enthusiast to the design ; fond of travel- 
ling, from a rapid imagination and an innate love of 
change; furnished with a body capable of sustain- 
ing every fatigue, and a heart not easily terrified at 
danger." 

In 1761, when Lord Bute 2 became prime minister 
on the accession of George the Third, Goldsmith 

1 Citizen of the World, letter cviii. 

2 John Stuart (1713-1792), third earl of Bute, was made one 
of the principal secretaries of state in 1761. He was prime 
minister 1762-1763. 



132 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

drew up a memorial on the subject, suggesting the 
advantages to be derived from a mission to those 
countries solely for useful and scientific purposes; 
and, the better to insure success, he preceded his ap- 
plication to the government by an ingenious essay to 
the same effect in the "Public Ledger." 

His memorial and his essay were fruitless, his pro- 
ject most probably being deemed the dream of a vis- 
ionary. Still it continued to haunt his mind, and he 
would often talk of making an expedition to Aleppo 
some time or other, when his means were greater, to 
inquire into the arts peculiar to the East, and to 
bring home such as might be valuable. Johnson, 
who knew how little poor Goldsmith was fitted by 
scientific lore for this favorite scheme of his fancy, 
scoffed at the project when it was mentioned to him. 
"Of all men," said he, "Goldsmith is the most unfit 
to go out upon such an inquiry, for he is utterly ig- 
norant of such arts as we already possess, and, con- 
sequently, could not know what would be accessions 
to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, 
he would bring home a grinding-barrow, 1 which you 
see in every street in London, and think that he had 
furnished a wonderful improvement." 

His connection with Newbery the bookseller now 
led him into a variety of temporary jobs, such as a 
pamphlet on the Cock Lane Ghost, 2 a Life of Beau 
Nash, the famous master of ceremonies at Bath, etc. ; 
one of the best things for his fame, however, was 

1 Hand-organ. 

2 A noted imposture perpetrated in 1762 in Cock-Lane, Smith- 
field, London, by one Parsons and his eleven-year-old daughter, 
— mysterious knockings and the like. Dr. Johnson, among 
others, visited the house. See page 163. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 133 

the remodelling and republication of his Chinese Let- 
ters under the title of "The Citizen of the World," 
a work which has long since taken its merited stand 
among the classics of the English language. "Few 
works," it has been observed by one of his biogra- 
phers, "exhibit a nicer perception or more delicate 
delineation of life and manners. Wit, humor, and 
sentiment pervade every page; the vices and follies 
of the day are touched with the most playful and di- 
verting satire ; and English characteristics, in endless 
variety, are hit off with the pencil of a master." 

In seeking materials for his varied views of life, he 
often mingled in strange scenes and got involved in 
whimsical situations. In the summer of 1762 he was 
one of the thousands who went to see the Cherokee 
chiefs, whom he mentions in one of his writings. The 
Indians made their appearance in grand costume, 
hideously painted and besmeared. In the course of 
the visit Goldsmith made one of the chiefs a present, 
who, in the ecstasy of his gratitude, gave him an 
embrace that left his face well bedaubed with oil and 
red ochre. 

Towards the close of 1762 he removed to "merry 
Islington," then a country village, though now swal- 
lowed up in omnivorous London. He went there for 
the benefit of country air, his health being injured 
by literary application and confinement, and to be 
near his chief employer, Mr. Xewbery, who resided 
in the Canonbury House. In this neighborhood he 
used to take his solitary rambles, sometimes extend- 
ing his walks to the gardens of the "White Conduit 
House," 1 so famous among the essayists of the last 

1 " White-Conduit- House, Islington, from the extreme plea- 
santness of its situation, was, for many years, a very attractive 



134 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

century. While strolling one day in these gardens, 
he met three females of the family of a respectable 
tradesman to whom he was under some obligation. 
With his prompt disposition to oblige, he conducted 
them about the garden, treated them to tea, and ran 
up a bill in the most open-handed manner imaginable ; 
it was only when he came to pay that he found him- 
self in one of his old dilemmas, — he had not the 
wherewithal in his pocket. A scene of perplexity 
now took place between him and the waiter, in the 
midst of which came up some of his acquaintances, 
in whose eyes he wished to stand particularly well. 
This completed his mortification. There was no con- 
cealing the awkwardness of his position. The sneers 
of the waiter revealed it. His acquaintances amused 
themselves for some time at his expense, professing 
their inability to relieve him. When, however, they 
had enjoyed their banter, the waiter was paid, and 
poor Goldsmith enabled to convoy off the ladies with 
flying colors. 

Among the various productions thrown off by him 
for the booksellers during this growing period of his 
reputation, was a small work in two volumes, entitled 
"The History of England, in a Series of Letters from 
a Nobleman to his Son." It was digested from 
Hume, Kapin, 1 Carte, 2 and Kennet. 3 These authors 

place of resort for the London populace in their recreative ex- 
cursions." Prior edition of Goldsmith's works, i. 37, note. See 
below, p. 198. 

1 Rapin (1661-1725) was a French historian of England. 
Voltaire called his book " the best work on English history that 
had until then appeared." 

2 Thomas Carte (1686-1754) wrote an important history of 
England. 

3 White Kennet (1660-1728) wrote a Corn-pleat History of 
England. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 135 

he would read in the morning: make a few sot 

ible with a friend into the country abort the 
skirts of "merry Islington:" return to a temperate 
dinner and cheerful evening: and. before going be 
bed, write oft what had arranged itself in his head 
from the studies of the morning. In this way be 

k a more general view of the subject, and wi 
in a more free and fluent style than if he had been 
mousing at the time among authorities. The work, 
like many others written by him in the earlier part 
of his literary career, was anonymous. Some attrib- 
uted it to Lord Chesterfield. 1 others to Lord Orrery. 2 
and others to Lord Lyttelton. 3 The latter seemed 
pleased to be the putative father, and never disowned 
the bantling thus laid at his door: and well might he 
have been proud to be considered capable of produ- 
cing what has been well pronounced ''the most fin- 
ished and elegant summary of English history in the 
same compass that has been or is likely to be written." 
The reputation of Goldsmith, it will be perceived, 
gTew slowly ; he was known and estimated by a few \ 
but he had not those brilliant though fallacious quali- 
ties which flash upon the public, and excite loud but 
transient applause. His works were more read than 
1: and the charm of style, for which he was es- 
pecially noted, was more apt to be felt than talked 
about. He used often to repine, in a half humorous, 
half querulous manner, at his tardiness in gaining 

1 Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield 

-rote to his son the famous Letters, which are still read. 

2 John Boyle ( '1702-1762;, fourth Earl of Orrery (^Ireland), 
wrote Letters from I: 

* Lord Lyttelton (1709-1773) was a statesman of the tune. 
He wrote Letters from a Persian in England to his Friend at 
Ispahan. 



136 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the laurels which he felt to be his due. "The pub- 
lic," he would exclaim, "will never do me justice; 
whenever I write anything, they make a point to 
know nothing about it." 

About the beginning of 1763 he became acquainted 
with Boswell, 1 whose literary gossipings were destined 
to have a deleterious effect upon his reputation. Bos- 
well was at that time a young man, light, buoyant, 
pushing, and presumptuous. He had a morbid pas- 
sion for mingling in the society of men noted for wit 
and learning, and had just arrived from Scotland, 
bent upon making his way into the literary circles of 
the metropolis. An intimacy with Dr. Johnson, the 
great literary luminary of the day, was the crowning 
object of his aspiring and somewhat ludicrous ambi- 
tion. He expected to meet him at a dinner to which 
he was invited at Davies the bookseller's, but was 
disappointed. Goldsmith was present, but he was not 
as yet sufficiently renowned to excite the reverence of 
Boswell. "At this time," says he in his Notes, "I 
think he had published nothing with his name, though 
it was pretty generally understood that one Dr. Gold- 
smith was the author of ' An Inquiry into the Present 
State of Polite Learning in Europe,' and of ' The 
Citizen of the World,' a series of letters supposed to 
be written from London by a Chinese." 

A conversation took place at table between Gold- 
smith and Mr. Robert Dodsley, compiler of the well- 

1 James Boswell (1740-1795) was a Scotchman (see p. 335). 
He wrote a Life of Dr. Johnson, which is the most famous of all 
biographies, although its author was by no means a great man. 
It consists of anecdotes of his hero and reports of conversations 
where Johnson shows the brightest. In the following pages, 
Irving quotes with great freedom from Boswell. See Macaulay's 
essay on the Life. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 137 

known collection of modern poetry, as to the merits 
of the current poetry of the day. Goldsmith declared 
there was none of superior merit. Dodsley cited his 
own collection in proof of the contrary. "It is true." 
said he, "we can boast of no palaces nowadays, like 
Dryden's ' Ode to St. Cecilia's Day." but we have 
villages composed of very pretty houses. " Goldsmith, 
however, maintained that there was nothing above 
mediocrity, an opinion in which Johnson, to whom it 
was repeated, concurred, and with reason, for the era 
was one of the dead levels of British poetry. 

Boswell has made no note of this conversation ; he 
was an unitarian in his literary devotion, and dis- 
posed to worship none but Johnson. Little Dairies 
endeavored to console him for his disappointment, 
and to stay the stomach of his curiosity, by giving 
him imitations of the great lexicographer; mouthing 
his words, rolling his head, and assuming as pon- 
derous a manner as his petty person would permit. 
Boswell was shortly afterwards made happy by an 
introduction to Johnson, of whom he became the ob- 
sequious satellite. From him he likewise imbibed a 
more favorable opinion of Goldsmith's merits, though 
he was fain to consider them derived in a great mea- 
sure from his Magnus Apollo. 1 "He had sagacity 
enough," says he, "to cultivate assiduously the ac- 
quaintance of Johnson, and his faculties were grad- 
ually enlarged by the contemplation of such a model. 
To me and many others it appeared that he studiously 
copied the manner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon 
a smaller scale." So on another occasion he calls him 
"one of the brightest ornaments of the Johnsonian 

1 Great Apollo is another name for Johnson, similar to Ursa 
Major and Great Cham. 



138 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

school." "His respectful attachment to Johnson," 
adds he, "was then at its height; for his own literary 
reputation had not yet distinguished him so much as 
to excite a vain desire of competition with his great 
master." 

What beautiful instances does the garrulous Bos- 
well give of the goodness of heart of Johnson, and 
the passing homage to it by Goldsmith ! They were 
speaking of a Mr. Levett, long an inmate of John- 
son's house and a dependent on his bounty, but who, 
Boswell thought, must be an irksome charge upon 
him. "He is poor and honest," said Goldsmith, 
"which is recommendation enough to Johnson." 

Boswell mentioned another person of a very bad 
character, and wondered at Johnson's kindness to 
him. "He is now become miserable," said Gold- 
smith, "and that insures the protection of Johnson." 
Encomiums like these speak almost as much for the 
heart of him who praises as of him who is praised. 

Subsequently, when Boswell had become more in- 
tense in his literary idolatry, he affected to under- 
value Goldsmith, and a lurking hostility to him is 
discernible throughout his writings, which some have 
attributed to a silly spirit of jealousy of the superior 
esteem evinced for the poet by Dr. Johnson. We 
have a gleam of this in his account of the first even- 
ing he spent in company with those two eminent 
authors at their famous resort, the Mitre Tavern, in 
Fleet Street. This took place on the 1st of July, 
1763. The trio supped together, and passed some 
time in literary conversation. On quitting the tav- 
ern, Johnson, who had now been sociably acquainted 
with Goldsmith for two years, and knew his merits, 
took him with him to drink tea with his blind pen- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 139 

sioner, Miss Williams. — a high privilege among his 
intimates and admirers. To Boswell, a recent ac- 
quaintance, whose intrusive sycophancy had not yet 
made its way into his confidential intimacy, he gave 
no invitation. Boswell felt it with all the jealousy 
of a little mind. "Dr. Goldsmith." says he, in his 
Memoirs, "being a privileged man. went with him, 
strutting away, and calling to me with an air of supe- 
riority, like that of an esoteric 1 over an exoteric dis- 
ciple of a sage of antiquity, i I go to Miss Williams.' 
1 confess I then envied him this mighty privilege, of 
which he seemed to be so proud; but it was not long 
before I obtained the same mark of distinction." 

Obtained! but how? not like Goldsmith, by the 
force of unpretending but congenial merit, but by a 
course of the most pushing, contriving, and spaniel- 
like subserviency. Really, the ambition of the man 
to illustrate his mental insignificance, by continually 
placing himself in juxtaposition with the great lexi- 
cographer, has something in it perfectly ludicrous. 
Never, since the days of Don Quixote and Sancho 
Panza. 2 has there been presented to the world a more 
whimsically contrasted pair of associates than Johnson 
and Boswell. 

"Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels 9 " 
asked some one when Boswell had worked his way 
into incessant companionship. "He is not a cur," 
replied Goldsmith, "you are too severe; he is only a 
bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, 
and he has the faculty of sticking." 

1 An esoteric (literallv, inner) disciple was one entitled to 
share the most sacred secrets of his master, which were withheld 
from the exoteric (literally, external) disciple. 

1 Don Quixote's squire. 



140 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Hogarth a Visitor at Islington; His Character. — Street Studies. 
— Sympathies between Authors and Painters. — Sir Joshua 
Reynolds; His Character; His Dinners. — The Literary Club; 
Its Members. — Johnson's Revels with Lanky and Beau. — 
Goldsmith at the Club. 

Among the intimates who used to visit the poet 
occasionally in his retreat at Islington, was Hogarth l 
the painter. Goldsmith had spoken well of him in 
his essays in the "Public Ledger," and this formed 
the first link in their friendship. He was at this time 
upwards of sixty years of age, and is described as a 
stout, active, bustling little man, in a sky-blue coat, 
satirical and dogmatic, yet full of real benevolence 
and the love of human nature. He was the moralist 
and philosopher of the pencil ; like Goldsmith he had 
sounded the depths of vice and misery, without being 
polluted by them ; and though his picturings had not 
the pervading amenity of those of the essayist, and 
dwelt more on the crimes and vices than the follies 
and humors of mankind, yet they were all calculated, 
in like manner, to fill the mind with instruction and 
precept, and to make the heart better. 

Hogarth does not appear to have had much of the 
rural feeling with which Goldsmith was so amply 
endowed, and may not have accompanied him in his 
strolls about hedges and green lanes ; but he was a fit 
companion with whom to explore the mazes of Lon- 

1 William Hogarth (1697-1764), painter and engraver. He 
first became known by his plates for Butler's Hudibras. His most 
famous works are the "Harlot's Progress," the "Rake's Pro- 
gress " and " Marriage a la Mode." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 141 

don, in which he was continually on the lookout for 
character and incident. One of Hogarth's admirers 
speaks of having come upon him in Castle Street, 
engaged in one of his street-studies, watching two 
boys who were quarrelling; patting one on the back 
who flinched, and endeavoring to spirit him up to a 

fresh encounter. " At him again ! D him, if I 

would take it of him ! At him again ! " 

A frail memorial of this intimacy between the 
painter and the poet exists in a portrait in oil, called 
"Goldsmith's Hostess." It is supposed to have been 
painted by Hogarth in the course of his visits to 
Islington, and given by him to the poet as a means 
of paying his landlady. There are no friendships 
among men of talents more likely to be sincere than 
those between painters and poets. Possessed of the 
same qualities of mind, governed by the same princi- 
ples of taste and natural laws of grace and beauty, 
but applying them to different yet mutually illustra- 
tive arts, they are constantly in sympathy, and never 
in collision with each other. 

A still more congenial intimacy of the kind was 
that contracted by Goldsmith with Mr. (afterwards 
Sir Joshua) Reynolds. The latter was now about 
forty years of age, a few years older than the poet, 
whom he charmed by the blandness and benignity of 
his manners, and the nobleness and generosity of his 
disposition, as much as he did by the graces of his 
pencil and the magic of his coloring. They were men 
of kindred genius, excelling in corresponding quali- 
ties of their several arts, for style l in writing is what 
color is in painting ; both are innate endowments, and 

1 What, then, is literary style ? Are they correct who say that 
it is " manner of expression " ? 



142 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

equally magical in their effects. Certain graces and 
harmonies of both may be acquired by diligent study 
and imitation, but only in a limited degree; whereas 
by their natural possessors they are exercised sponta- 
neously, almost unconsciously, and with ever-varying 
fascination. Reynolds soon understood and appre- 
ciated the merits of Goldsmith, and a sincere and 
lasting friendship ensued between them. 

At Reynolds's house Goldsmith mingled in a higher 
range of company than he had been accustomed to. 
The fame of this celebrated artist, and his amenity 
of manners, were gathering round him men of talents 
of all kinds, and the increasing affluence of his cir- 
cumstances enabled him to give full indulgence to 
his hospitable disposition. Poor Goldsmith had not 
yet, like Dr. Johnson, acquired reputation enough 
to atone for his external defects and his want of the 
air of good society. Miss Reynolds used to inveigh 
against his personal appearance, which gave her the 
idea, she said, of a low mechanic, a journeyman 
tailor. One evening at a large supper party, being 
called upon to give as a toast the ugliest man she 
knew, she gave Dr. Goldsmith, upon which a lady 
who sat opposite, and whom she had never met before, 
shook hands with her across the table, and "hoped to 
become better acquainted." 

We have a graphic and amusing picture of Rey- 
nolds's hospitable but motley establishment, in an ac- 
count given by a Mr. Courtenay to Sir James Mack- 
intosh; though it speaks of a time after Reynolds 
had received the honor of knighthood. " There was 
something singular," said he, "in the style and eco- 
nomy of Sir Joshua's table that contributed to plea- 
santry and good -humor, — a coarse, inelegant plenty, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 143 

without any regard to order and arrangement. At 
five o'clock precisely, dinner was served, whether all 
the invited guests had arrived or not. Sir Joshua 
was never so fashionably ill-bred as to wait an hour 
perhaps for two or three persons of rank or title, and 
put the rest of the company out of humor by this in- 
vidious distinction. His invitations, however, did not 
regulate the number of his guests. Many dropped in 
uninvited. A table prepared for seven or eight was 
often compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen. There 
was a consequent deficiency of knives, forks, plates, 
and glasses. The attendance was in the same style, 
and those who were knowing in the ways of the house 
took care on sitting down to call instantly for beer, 
bread, or wine, that they might secure a supply be- 
fore the first course was over. He was once prevailed 
on to furnish the table with decanters and glasses at 
dinner, to save time and prevent confusion. These 
gradually were demolished in the course of service, 
and were never replaced. These trifling embarrass- 
ments, however, only served to enhance the hilar- 
ity and singular pleasure of the entertainment. The 
wine, cookery, and dishes were but little attended 
to; nor was the fish or venison ever talked of or re- 
commended. Amidst this convivial animated bustle 
among his guests, our host sat perfectly composed; 
always attentive to what was said, never minding 
what was ate or drank, but left every one at perfect 
liberty to scramble for himself." 

Out of the casual but frequent meeting of men of 
talent at this hospitable board rose that association of 
wits, authors, scholars, and statesmen, renowned as 
the Literary Club. Reynolds was the first to propose 
a regular association of the kind, and was eagerly 



144 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

seconded by Johnson, who proposed as a model a 
club which he had formed many years previously in 
Ivy Lane, but which was now extinct. Like that 
club the number of members was limited to nine. 
They were to meet and sup together once a week, on 
Monday night, at the Turk's Head on Gerard Street, 
Soho, and two members were to constitute a meet- 
ing. It took a regular form in the year 1764, but 
did not receive its literary appellation until several 
years afterwards. 

The original members were Eeynolds, Johnson, 
Burke, Dr. Nugent, Bennet Langton, Topham Beau- 
clerc, Chamier, Hawkins, and Goldsmith; and here 
a few words concerning some of the members may be 
acceptable. Burke was at that time about thirty- 
three years of age ; he had mingled a little in politics 
and been under secretary to Hamilton at Dublin, 
but was again a writer for the booksellers, and as yet 
but in the dawning of his fame. Dr. Nugent was his 
father-in-law, a Roman Catholic, and a physician of 
talent and instruction. Mr. (afterwards Sir John) 
Hawkins was admitted into this association from hav- 
ing been a member of Johnson's Ivy Lane club. 
Originally an attorney, he had retired from the prac- 
tice of the law, in consequence of a large fortune 
which fell to him in right of his wife, and was now a 
Middlesex magistrate. He was, moreover, a dabbler 
in literature and music, and was actually engaged on 
a history of music, which he subsequently published 
in five ponderous volumes. To him we are also in- 
debted for a biography of Johnson, which appeared 
after the death of that eminent man. Hawkins was 
as mean and parsimonious as he was pompous and 
conceited. He forbore to partake of the suppers at 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 145 

the club, and begged therefore to be excused from 
paying his share of the reckoning. "And was he 
excused?" asked Dr. Burney 1 of Johnson. "Oh, 
yes, for no man is angry with another for being infe- 
rior to himself. We all scorned him and admitted 
his plea. Yet I really believe him to be an honest 
man at bottom, though to be sure he is penurious, 
and he is mean, and it must be owned he has a ten- 
dency to savageness.' , He did not remain above two 
or three years in the club, being in a manner elbowed 
out in consequence of his rudeness to Burke. 

Mr. Anthony Chamier was secretary in the war- 
office, and a friend to Beauclerc, by whom he was 
proposed. We have left our mention of Bennet 
Langton and Topham Beauclerc until the last, be- 
cause we have most to say about them. They were 
doubtless induced to join the club through their devo- 
tion to Johnson, and the intimacy of these two very 
young and aristocratic men with the stern and some- 
what melancholy moralist is among the curiosities of 
literature. 

Bennet Langton was of an ancient family, who held 
their ancestral estate of Langton in Lincolnshire, — 
a great title to respect with Johnson. "Langton, 
sir," he would say, "has a grant of free- warren 2 from 
Henry the Second ; and Cardinal Stephen Langton, 
in King John's reign, was of this family." 

Langton was of a mild, contemplative, enthusiastic 
nature. When but eighteen years of age he was so 

1 A musical composer (1726-1814). He was the father of 
the celebrated Frances Burney, Madame d'Arblay, author of 
Evelina, etc. 

2 A royal permit granting the exclusive right to kill game in 
certain preserves. 



146 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

delighted with reading Johnson's "Kambler" that 
he came to London chiefly with a view to obtain an 
introduction to the author. Boswell gives us an ac- 
count of his first interview, which took place in the 
morning. It is not often that the personal appear- 
ance of an author agrees with the preconceived ideas 
of his admirer. Langton, from perusing the writings 
of Johnson, expected to find him a decent, well- 
dressed, in short a remarkably decorous philosopher. 
Instead of which, down from his bedchamber about 
noon came, as newly risen, a large, uncouth figure, 
with a little dark wig which scarcely covered his head, 
and his clothes hanging loose about him. But his 
conversation was so rich, so animated, and so forcible, 
and his religious and political notions so congenial 
with those in which Langton had been educated, that 
he conceived for him that veneration and attachment 
which he ever preserved. 

Langton went to pursue his studies at Trinity Col- 
lege, Oxford, where Johnson saw much of him during 
a visit which he paid to the University. He found 
him in close intimacy with Topham Beauclerc, a youth 
two years older than himself, very gay and dissipated, 
and wondered what sympathies could draw two young 
men together of such opposite characters. On becom- 
ing acquainted with Beauclerc he found that, rake 
though he was, he possessed an ardent love of lit- 
erature, an acute understanding, polished wit, innate 
gentility, and high aristocratic breeding. He was, 
moreover, the only son of Lord Sidney Beauclerc and 
grandson of the Duke of St. Albans, and was thought 
in some particulars to have a resemblance to Charles 
the Second. These were high recommendations with 
Johnson; and when the youth testified a profound 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 147 

respect for him and an ardent admiration of his tal- 
ents, the conquest was complete, so that in a "short 
time," says Boswell, "the moral, pious Johnson and 
the gay, dissipated Beauclerc were companions." 

The intimacy begun in college chambers was con- 
tinued when the youths came to town during the 
vacations. The uncouth, unwieldy moralist was flat- 
tered at finding himself an object of idolatry to two 
high-born, high-bred, aristocratic young men, and 
throwing gravity aside, was ready to join in their 
vagaries and play the part of a "young man upon 
town." Such, at least, is the picture given of him by 
Boswell on one occasion when Beauclerc and Langton, 
having supped together at a tavern, determined to 
give Johnson a rouse at three o'clock in the morning. 
They accordingly rapped violently at the door of his 
chambers in the Temple. The indignant sage sal- 
lied forth in his shirt, poker in hand, and a little 
black wig on the top of his head, instead of helmet, 
prepared to wreak vengeance on the assailants of his 
castle ; but when his two young friends Lanky and 
Beau, as he used to call them, presented themselves, 
summoning him forth to a morning ramble, his whole 
manner changed. "What, is it you, ye dogs?" cried 
he. "Faith, I '11 have a frisk with you! " 

So said, so done. They sallied forth together into 
Covent Garden ; figured among the green-grocers and 
fruit-women, just come in from the country with their 
hampers; repaired to a neighboring tavern, where 
Johnson brewed a bowl of bishop, 1 a favorite bever- 
age with him, grew merry over his cups, and anathe- 

1 " A hot drink made with bitter oranges, cloves, and port 
wine." — Century Dictionary. 



148 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

matized sleep in two lines, from Lord Lansdowne's 1 
drinking song : — 

" Short, very short, be then thy reign, 
For I 'in in haste to laugh and drink again." 

They then took boat again, rowed to Billingsgate, and 
Johnson and Beauclerc determined, like "mad wags," 
to "keep it up" for the rest of the day. Langton, 
however, the most sober-minded of the three, pleaded 
an engagement to breakfast with some young ladies; 
whereupon the great moralist reproached him with 
"leaving his social friends to go and sit with a set of 
wretched un-idea'd girls." 

This madcap freak of the great lexicographer made 
a sensation, as may well be supposed, among his inti- 
mates. "I heard of your frolic t'other night," said 
Garrick to him; "you'll be in the 'Chronicle.'' 
He uttered worse forebodings to others. "I shall 
have my old friend to bail out of the round-house," 
said he. Johnson, however, valued himself upon hav- 
ing thus enacted a chapter in the "Kake's Progress," 2 
and crowed over Garrick on the occasion. "He durst 
not do such a thing! " chuckled he; "his wife would 
not let him! " 

When these two young men entered the club, 
Langton was about twenty -two, and Beauclerc about 
twenty-four years of age, and both were launched on 
London life. Langton, however, was still the mild, 
enthusiastic scholar, steeped to the lips in Greek, 
with fine conversational powers and an invaluable 

i George Granville (1667-1735) was a poet, dramatist, and 
politician. The quotation is from his " Drinking Song to Sleep." 

2 A picture drama by Hogarth (see p. 140). In eight scenes 
he represented the stages in the journey of a rich young man, 
through dissipation to poverty, despair, and madness. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 149 

talent for listening. He was upwards of six feet high, 
and very spare. "Oh! that we could sketch him," 
exclaims Miss Hawkins, in her "Memoirs," "with his 
mild countenance, his elegant features, and his sweet 
smile, sitting with one leg twisted round the other, 
as if fearing to occupy more space than was equitable ; 
his person inclining forward, as if wanting strength 
to support his weight, and his arms crossed over his 
bosom, or his hands locked together on his knee." 
Beauclerc, on such occasions, sportively compared 
him to a stork in Raphael's Cartoons, 1 standing on 
one leg. Beauclerc was more a "man upon town," 
a lounger in St. James's Street, an associate with 
George Selwyn, 2 with Walpole, and other aristocratic 
wits; a man of fashion at court; a casual frequenter 
of the gaming-table ; yet, with all this, he alternated 
in the easiest and happiest manner the scholar and 
the man of letters; lounged into the club with the 
most perfect self-possession, bringing with him the 
careless grace and polished wit of high-bred society, 
but making himself cordially at home among his 
learned fellow-members. 

The gay yet lettered rake maintained his sway over 
Johnson, who was fascinated by that air of the world, 
that ineffable tone of good society in which he felt 
himself deficient, especially as the possessor of it 
always paid homage to his superior talent. "Beau- 

1 Raphael (1483-1520) was an Italian painter. His "Car- 
toons " were drawings to be reproduced in Flemish tapestry. 
They were made for Pope Leo X. in 1515-1516. The stork 
standing on one leg occurs in the cartoon entitled " The Draught 
of Fishes." Its prominence gives it the effect of awkwardness 
and lack of artistic grace. 

2 An English wit (1719-1791). He was expelled from Oxford 
University for blasphemy. 



150 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

clerc," he would say, using a quotation from Pope, 1 
"has a love of folly, but a scorn of fools; everything 
he does shows the one, and everything he says the 
other." Beauclerc delighted in rallying the stern 
moralist of whom others stood in awe, and no one, 
according to Boswell, could take equal liberty with 
him with impunity. Johnson, it is well known, was 
often shabby and negligent in his dress, and not over- 
cleanly in his person. On receiving a pension from 
the crown, his friends vied with each other in re- 
spectful congratulations. Beauclerc simply scanned 
his person with a whimsical glance, and hoped that, 
like Falstaff, 2 "he 'd in future purge and live cleanly 
like a gentleman." Johnson took the hint with unex- 
pected good-humor, and profited by it. 

Still Beauclerc 's satirical vein, which darted shafts 
on every side, was not always tolerated by Johnson. 
"Sir," said he on one occasion, "you never open 
your mouth but with intention to give pain ; and you 
have often given me pain, not from the power of what 
you have said, but from seeing your intention." 

When it was at first proposed to enroll Goldsmith 
among the members of this association, there seems to 
have been some demur ; at least, so says the pompous 
Hawkins. "As he wrote for the booksellers we of 
the club looked on him as a mere literary drudge, 
equal to the task of compiling and translating, but 

1 Alexander Pope (1688-1744), an English poet of eminence. 
He was frail and sickly and of an uncertain temper, which was 
sometimes reflected in his works. 

2 Falstaff is a prominent character in Shakespeare's Henry I V. 
and in the Merry Wives of Windsor. He is a boon companion 
of Prince Hal, afterward Henry V. He is witty, fat, sensual, 
cowardly. The quotation is not quite accurate. See / Henry IV. 
Act V. Scene iv. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 151 

little capable of original and still less of poetical 
composition." 

Even for some time after his admission lie contin- 
ued to be regarded in a dubious light by some of the 
members. Johnson and Reynolds, of course, were 
well aware of his merits, nor was Burke a stranger 
to them; but to the others he was as yet a sealed 
book, and the outside was not prepossessing. His 
ungainly person and awkward manners were against 
him with men accustomed to the graces of society, 
and he was not sufficiently at home to give play to 
his humor and to that bonhomie 1 which won the 
hearts of all who knew him. He felt strange and out 
of place in this new sphere; he felt at times the cool 
satirical eye of the courtly Beauclerc scanning him, 
and the more he attempted to appear at his ease, the 
more awkward he became. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Johnson a Monitor to Goldsmith; Finds Him in Distress with 
his Landlady; Relieved by "The Vicar of Wakefield." — The 
Oratorio. — Poem of " The Traveller." — The Poet and his 
Dog. — Success of the Poem. — Astonishment of the Club. — 
Observations on the Poem. 

Johnson had now become one of Goldsmith's best 
friends and advisers. He knew all the weak points 
of his character, but he knew also his merits; and 
while he would rebuke him like a child, and rail at 
his errors and follies, he would suffer no one else to 
undervalue him. Goldsmith knew the soundness of 
his judgment and his practical benevolence, and often 
1 Good fellowship. 



152 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

sought his counsel and aid amid the difficulties into 
which his heedlessness was continually plunging him. 

"I received one morning," says Johnson, "a mes- 
sage from poor Goldsmith that he was in great dis- 
tress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, 
begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. 
I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him 
directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, 
and found that his landlady had arrested him for his 
rent, at which he was in a violent passion: I per- 
ceived that he had already changed my guinea, and 
had a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I 
put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be 
calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which 
he might be extricated. He then told me he had a 
novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. 
I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady 
I should soon return; and, having gone to a book- 
seller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith 
the money, and he discharged his rent, not without 
rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him 
so ill." 

The novel in question was "The Vicar of Wake- 
field;" the bookseller to whom Johnson sold it was 
Francis Newbery, nephew to John. Strange as it 
may seem, this captivating work, which has obtained 
and preserved an almost unrivalled popularity in 
various languages, was so little appreciated by the 
bookseller, that he kept it by him for nearly two years 
unpublished ! 

Goldsmith had, as yet, produced nothing of mo- 
ment in poetry. Among his literary jobs, it is true, 
was an Oratorio entitled "The Captivity," founded 
on the bondage of the Israelites in Babylon. It was 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 153 

one of those unhappy offsprings of the Muse ushered 
into existence amid the distortions of music. Most of 
the Oratorio has passed into oblivion ; but the follow- 
ing song from it will never die. 

" The wretch condemned from life to part, 
Still, still on hope relies, 
And every pang that rends the heart 
Bids expectation rise. 

" Hope, like the glimmering taper's light, 
Illumes and cheers our way ; 
And still, as darker grows the night, 
Emits a brighter ray." 

Goldsmith distrusted his qualifications to succeed 
in poetry, and doubted the disposition of the public 
mind in regard to it. "I fear," said he, "I have 
come too late into the world; Pope and other poets 
have taken up the places in the temple of Fame ; and 
as few at any period can possess poetical reputation, 
a man of genius can now hardly acquire it." Again, 
on another occasion, he observes: "Of all kinds of 
ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps 
that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest. 
What from the increased refinement of the times, 
from the diversity of judgment produced by opposing 
systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent 
divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest 
and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a very 
narrow circle." 1 

At this very time he had by him his poem of "The 
Traveller." The plan of it, as has already been ob- 
served, was conceived many years before, during his 
travels in Switzerland, and a sketch of it sent from 

1 From the dedication of The Traveller, first edition. 



154 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

that country to his brother Henry in Ireland. The 
original outline is said to have embraced a wider 
scope; but it was probably contracted through diffi- 
dence, in the process of finishing the parts. It had 
laid by him for several years in a crude state, and it 
was with extreme hesitation and after much revision 
that he at length submitted it to Dr. Johnson. The 
frank and warm approbation of the latter encouraged 
him to finish it for the press; and Dr. Johnson him- 
self contributed a few lines towards the conclusion. 1 

We hear much about "poetic inspiration," and the 
"poet's eye in a fine phrensy rolling; " but Sir Joshua 
Keynolds gives an anecdote of Goldsmith while en- 
gaged upon his poem, calculated to cure our notions 
about the ardor of composition. Calling upon the 
poet one day, he opened the door without ceremony, 
and found him in the double occupation of turning 
a couplet and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his 
haunches. At one time he would glance his eye at 
his desk, and at another shake his finger at the dog 
to make him retain his position. The last lines on 
the page were still wet; they form a part of the 
description of Italy : — 

" By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, 
The sports of children satisfy the child." 

Goldsmith, with his usual good-humor, joined in the 
laugh # caused by his whimsical employment, and ac- 
knowledged that his boyish sport with the dog sug- 
gested the stanza. 

The poem was published on the 19th of December, 
1764, in a quarto form, by Newbery, and was the 

1 According to Boswell, Johnson wrote line 420 and the last 
ten lines. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 155 

first of his works to which Goldsmith prefixed his 
name. As a testimony of cherished and well-merited 
affection, he dedicated it to his brother Henry. There 
is an amusing affectation of indifference as to its fate 
expressed in the dedication. "What reception a 
poem may find," says he, "which has neither abuse, 
party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, 
nor am I solicitous to know." The truth is, no one 
was more emulous and anxious for poetic fame ; and 
never was he more anxious than in the present instance, 
for it was his grand stake. Dr. Johnson aided the 
launching of the poem by a favorable notice in the 
"Critical Review; " other periodical works came out 
in its favor. Some of the author's friends complained 
that it did not command instant and wide popularity: 
that it was a poem to win. not to strike : it went on 
rapidly increasing in favor; in three months a second 
edition was issued; shortly afterwards, a third; then 
a fourth; and, before the year was out, the author 
was pronounced the best poet of his time. 

The appearance of "The Traveller " at once altered 
Goldsmith's intellectual standing in the estimation of 
society; but its effect upon the club, if we may judge 
from the account given by Hawkins, was almost ludi- 
crous. They were lost in astonishment that a "news- 
paper essayist" and "bookseller's drudge" should 
have written such a poem. On the evening of its an- 
nouncement to them Goldsmith had gone away early. 
after "rattling away as usual," and they knew not how 
to reconcile his heedless garrulity with the serene 
beauty, the easy grace, the sound good sense, and the 
occasional elevation of his poetry. They could scarcely 
believe that such magic numbers had flowed from a 
man to whom in general, savs Johnson, "it was with 



156 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

difficulty they could give a hearing." "Well," ex- 
claimed Chamier, "I do believe he wrote this poem 
himself, and let me tell you, that is believing a great 
deal." 

At the next meeting of the club, Chamier sounded 
the author a little about his poem. "Mr. Goldsmith," 
said he, "what do you mean by the last word in the 
first line of your 'Traveller,' 'Remote, unfriended, 
melancholy, slow V — do you mean tardiness of loco- 
motion?" "Yes," replied Goldsmith, inconsider- 
ately, being probably flurried at the moment. "No, 
sir," interposed his protecting friend Johnson, "you 
did not mean tardiness of locomotion ; you meant that 
sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in sol- 
itude." "Ah," exclaimed Goldsmith, "that was 
what I meant." Chamier immediately believed that 
Johnson himself had written the line, and a rumor 
became prevalent that he was the author of many of 
the finest passages. This was ultimately set at rest 
by Johnson himself, who marked with a pencil all the 
verses he had contributed, nine in number, inserted 
towards the conclusion, and by no means the best in 
the poem. He moreover, with generous warmth, pro- 
nounced it the finest poem that had appeared since 
the days of Pope. 

But one of the highest testimonials to the charm of 
the poem was given by Miss Reynolds, who had toasted 
poor Goldsmith as the ugliest man of her acquaintance. 
Shortly after the appearance of "The Traveller," Dr. 
Johnson read it aloud from beginning to end in her 
presence. "Well," exclaimed she, when he had fin- 
ished, "I never more shall think Dr. Goldsmith ugly !" 

On another occasion, when the merits of "The 
Traveller" were discussed at Reynolds's board, Lang- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 157 

ton declared "there was not a bad line in the poem, 
not one of Dryden's careless verses." "I was glad," 
observed Reynolds, "to hear Charles Fox * say it was 
one of the finest poems in the English language." 
"Why was you glad ? " rejoined Langton, "you surely 
had no doubt of this before." "No," interposed 
Johnson, decisively; "the merit of 'The Traveller' 
is so well established, that Mr. Fox's praise cannot 
augment it, nor his censure diminish it." 

Boswell, who was absent from England at the time 
of the publication of "The Traveller, " was astonished 
on his return, to find Goldsmith, whom he had so 
much undervalued, suddenly elevated almost to a par 
with his idol. He accounted for it by concluding 
that much both of the sentiments and expression of 
the poem had been derived from conversations with 
Johnson. "He imitates you, sir," said this incarna- 
tion of toadyism. "Why no, sir," replied Johnson, 
"Jack Hawksworth is one of my imitators, but not 
Goldsmith. Goldy, sir, has great merit." "But, 
sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high 
in the public estimation." "Why, sir, he has, per- 
haps, got sooner to it by his intimacy with me." 

The poem went through several editions in the course 
of the first year, and received some few additions and 
corrections from the author's pen. It produced a 
golden harvest to Mr. Newbery ; but all the remuner- 
ation on record, doled out by his niggard hand to the 
author, was twenty guineas \ 

1 The celebrated English statesman (1749-1806). 



158 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER XVT. 

New Lodgings. — Johnson's Compliment. — A Titled Patron. — 
The Poet at Northumberland House. — His Independence of 
the Great. — The Countess of Northumberland. — " Edwin 
and Angelina." — Gosfield and Lord Clare. — Publication of 
Essays. — Evils of a Rising Reputation. — Hangers-on. — Job 
Writing. — " Goody Two Shoes." — A Medical Campaign. — 
Mrs. Sidebotham. 

Goldsmith, now that he was rising in the world, 
and becoming a notoriety, felt himself called upon to 
improve his style of living. He accordingly emerged 
from Wine Office Court, and took chambers in the 
Temple. It is true they were but of humble preten- 
sions, situated on what was then the library staircase, 
and it would appear that he was a kind of inmate with 
Jeffs, the butler of the society. Still he was in the 
Temple, that classic region rendered famous by the 
Spectator and other essayists as the abode of gay wits 
and thoughtful men of letters; and which, with its 
retired courts and embowered gardens, in the very 
heart of a noisy metropolis, is, to the quiet-seeking 
student and author, an oasis freshening with verdure 
in the midst of a desert. Johnson, who had become 
a kind of growling supervisor of the poet's affairs, 
paid him a visit soon after he had installed himself in 
his new quarters, and went prying about the apart- 
ment, in his near-sighted manner, examining every- 
thing minutely. Goldsmith was fidgeted by this curi- 
ous scrutiny, and apprehending a disposition to find 
fault, exclaimed, with the air of a man who had money 
in both pockets, "I shall soon be in better chambers 
than these." The harmless bravado drew a reply 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 159 

from Johnson, which touched the chord of proper pride. 
"Nay, sir," said he, "never mind that. Nil te quse- 
siveris extra," 1 — implying that his reputation ren- 
dered him independent of outward show. Happy 
would it have been for poor Goldsmith, could he have 
kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind, 
and squared his expenses accordingly. 

Among the persons of rank who were struck with 
the merits of "The Traveller" was the Earl (after- 
wards Duke) of Northumberland. 2 He procured sev- 
eral other of Goldsmith's writings, the perusal of 
which tended to elevate the author in his good opinion, 
and to gain for him his good-will. The Earl held the 
office of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and understand- 
ing Goldsmith was an Irishman, was disposed to ex- 
tend to him the patronage which his high post afforded. 
He intimated the same to his relative, Dr. Percy, who, 
he found, was well acquainted with the poet, and ex- 
pressed a wish that the latter should wait upon him. 
Here, then, was another opportunity for Goldsmith to 
better his fortune, had he been knowing and worldly 
enough to profit by it. Unluckily the path to fortune 
lay through the aristocratical mazes of Northumber- 
land House, and the poet blundered at the outset. 
The following is the account he used to give of his 
visit: "I dressed myself in the best manner I could, 
and, after studying some compliments I thought ne- 
cessary on such an occasion, proceeded to Northum- 
berland House, and acquainted the servants that I had 
particular business with the Duke. They showed me 

1 You need to seek nothing outside of yourself. 

2 Sir Hugh Smithson, the father of the founder of the Smith- 
sonian Institution, Washington, D. C, was made Duke of North- 
umberland in 1766. 



160 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

into an antechamber, where, after waiting some time, 
a gentleman, very elegantly dressed, made his appear- 
ance: taking him for the Duke, I delivered all the 
fine things I had composed in order to compliment 
him on the honor he had done me ; when, to my great 
astonishment, he told me I had mistaken him for his 
master, who would see me immediately. At that in- 
stant the Duke came into the apartment, and I was 
so confounded on the occasion that I wanted words 
barely sufficient to express the sense I entertained of 
the Duke's politeness, and went away exceedingly 
chagrined at the blunder I had committed." 

Sir John Hawkins, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, gives 
some farther particulars of this visit, of which he was, 
in part, a witness. "Having one day," says he, "a 
call to make on the late Duke (then Earl) of North- 
umberland, I found Goldsmith waiting for an audi- 
ence in an outer room : I asked him what had brought 
him there; he told me, an invitation from his lord- 
ship. I made my business as short as I could, and, 
as a reason, mentioned that Dr. Goldsmith was waiting 
without. The Earl asked me if I was acquainted with 
him. I told him that I was, adding what I thought 
was most likely to recommend him. I retired, and 
stayed in the outer room to take him home. Upon 
his coming out, I asked him the result of his conver- 
sation. 'His lordship,' said he, 'told me he had read 
my poem, meaning "The Traveller," and was much 
delighted with it ; that he was going to be lord-lieu- 
tenant of Ireland, and that, hearing I was a native of 
that country, he should be glad to do me any kind- 
ness.' 'And what did you answer,' said I, 'to this 
gracious offer?' 'Why,' said he, 'I could say nothing 
but that T had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 161 

in need of help : as for myself, I have no great depend- 
ence on the promises of great men ; I look to the book- 
sellers for support; they are my best friends, and I 
am not inclined to forsake them for others. ' " "Thus," 
continues Sir John, "did this idiot in the affairs of 
the world trifle with his fortunes, and put back the 
hand that was held out to assist him." 

We cannot join with Sir John in his worldly sneer 
at the conduct of Goldsmith on this occasion. While 
we admire that honest independence of spirit which 
prevented him from asking favors for himself, we love 
that warmth of affection which instantly sought to 
advance the fortunes of a brother; but the peculiar 
merits of poor Goldsmith seem to have been little 
understood by the Hawkinses, the Boswells, and the 
other biographers of the day. 

After all, the introduction to Northumberland House 
did not prove so complete a failure as the humorous 
account given by Goldsmith, and the cynical account 
given by Sir John Hawkins, might lead one to sup- 
pose. Dr. Percy, the heir male of the ancient Percies, 
brought the poet into the acquaintance of his kins- 
woman, the countess; who, before her marriage with 
the earl, was in her own right heiress of the House of 
Northumberland. "She was a lady," says Boswell, 
"not only of high dignity of spirit, such as became 
her noble blood, but of excellent understanding and 
lively talents." Under her auspices a poem of Gold- 
smith's had an aristocratical introduction to the world. 
This was the beautiful ballad of "The Hermit," ori- 
ginally published under the name of "Edwin and An- 
gelina." It was suggested by an old English ballad 
beginning "Gentle Herdsman," shown him by Dr. 
Percy, who was at that time making his famous collec- 



162 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

tion, entitled "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," 
which he submitted to the inspection of Goldsmith 
prior to publication. A few copies only of "The 
Hermit" 1 were printed at first, with the following- 
title-page : " Edwin and Angelina : a Ballad. By Mr. 
Goldsmith. Printed for the Amusement of the Count- 
ess of Northumberland." 

All this, though it may not have been attended with 
any immediate pecuniary advantage, contributed to 
give Goldsmith's name and poetry the high stamp of 
fashion, so potent in England : the circle at North- 
umberland House, however, was of too stately and 
aristocratical a nature to be much to his taste, and we 
do not find that he became familiar in it. 

He was much more at home at Gosfield, the seat 
of his countryman, Robert Nugent, afterwards Baron 
Nugent and Viscount Clare, who appreciated his mer- 
its even more heartily than the Earl of Northumber- 
land, and occasionally made him his guest both in 
town and country. Nugent is described as a jovial 
voluptuary, who left the Roman Catholic for the 
Protestant religion, with a view to bettering his for- 
tunes; he had an Irishman's inclination for rich wid- 
ows, and an Irishman's luck with the sex; having 
been thrice married, and gained a fortune with each 
wife. He was now nearly sixty, with a remarkably 
loud voice, broad Irish brogue, and ready, but some- 
what coarse wit. With all his occasional coarseness 
he was capable of high thought, and had produced 
poems which showed a truly poetic vein. He was long 
a member of the House of Commons, where his ready 
wit, his fearless decision, and good-humored audacity 
of expression always gained him a hearing, though his 
1 Afterward used in The Vicar of Wakefield. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 163 

tall person and awkward manner gained him the nick- 
name of Squire Gawky among the political scribblers 
of the day. With a patron of this jovial tempera- 
ment, Goldsmith probably felt more at ease than with 
those of higher refinement. 

The celebrity which Goldsmith had acquired by his 
poem of " The Traveller " occasioned a resuscitation of 
many of his miscellaneous and anonymous tales and 
essays from the various newspapers and other tran- 
sient publications in which they lay dormant. These 
he published in 1765, in a collected form, under the 
title of "Essays by Mr. Goldsmith." "The follow- 
ing Essays," observes he in his preface, "have already 
appeared at different times, and in different publica- 
tions. The pamphlets in which they were inserted 
being generally unsuccessful, these shared the com- 
mon fate, without assisting the booksellers' aims, or 
extending the author's reputation. The public were 
too strenuously employed with their own follies to be 
assiduous in estimating mine; so that many of my 
best attempts in this way have fallen victims to the 
transient topic of the times — the Ghost in Cock Lane, 1 
or the Siege of Ticonderoga. 

"But, though they have passed pretty silently into 
the world, I can by no means complain of their circu- 
lation. The magazines and papers of the day have 
indeed been liberal enough in this respect. Most of 
these essays have been regularly reprinted twice or 
thrice a year, and conveyed to the public through the 
kennel of some engaging compilation. If there be a 
pride in multiplied editions, I have seen some of my 
labors sixteen times reprinted, and claimed by differ- 
ent parents as their own. I have seen them flourished 
1 See page 132. 



164 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

at the beginning with praise, and signed at the end 
with the names of Philautos, Philalethes, Phileleu- 
theros, and Philanthropos. 1 It is time, however, at 
last to vindicate my claims ; and as these entertainers 
of the public, as they call themselves, have partly lived 
upon me for some years, let me now try if I cannot live 
a little upon myself." 2 

It was but little, in fact; for all the pecuniary emol- 
ument he received from the volume was twenty guin- 
eas. It had a good circulation, however, was trans- 
lated into French, and has maintained its stand among 
the British classics. 

Notwithstanding that the reputation of Goldsmith 
had greatly risen, his finances were often at a very 
low ebb, owing to his heedlessness as to expense, his 
liability to be imposed upon, and a spontaneous and 
irresistible propensity to give to every one who asked. 
The very rise in his reputation had increased these 
embarrassments. It had enlarged his circle of needy 
acquaintances, authors poorer in pocket than himself, 
who came in search of literary counsel; which gener- 
ally meant a guinea and a breakfast. And then his 
Irish hangers-on! "Our Doctor," said one of these 
spongers, "had a constant levee of his distressed coun- 
trymen, whose wants, as far as he was able, he always 
relieved ; and he has often been known to leave him- 
self without a guinea, in order to supply the necessi- 
ties of others." 

This constant drainage of the purse, therefore, 

1 These are Greek words meaning, respectively, Self-lover, 
Truth-lover, Freedom-lover, and Mankind-lover. The words 
occur also in The Vicar of Wakefield. Riverside Literature 
Series, p. 131. 

2 Goldsmith's Miscellaneous Works, Prior edition, i. p. 165. 
Putnam, 1850. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 165 

obliged him to undertake all jobs proposed by the 
booksellers, and to keep up a kind of running account 
with Mr. Newbery ; who was his banker on all occa- 
sions, sometimes for pounds, sometimes for shillings; 
but who was a rigid accountant, and took care to be 
amply repaid in manuscript. Many effusions, hastily 
penned in these moments of exigency, were published 
anonymously, and never claimed. Some of them have 
but recently been traced to his pen ; while of many 
the true authorship will probably never be discovered. 
Among others, it is suggested, and with great proba- 
bility, that he wrote for Mr. Newbery the famous nur- 
sery story of "Goody Two Shoes," which appeared 
in 1765, at a moment when Goldsmith was scribbling 
for Newbery, and much pressed for funds. Several 
quaint little tales introduced in his Essays show that 
he had a turn for this species of mock history; and 
the advertisement and title-page bear the stamp of 
his sly and playful humor. 

"We are desired to give notice that there is in the 
press, and speedily will be published, either by sub- 
scription or otherwise, as the public shall please to 
determine, the * History of Little Goody Two Shoes, 
otherwise Mrs. Margery Two Shoes; ' with the means 
by which she acquired learning and wisdom, and, in 
consequence thereof, her estate ; set forth at large for 
the benefit of those 

' Who, from a state of rags and care, 
And having shoes but half a pair, 
Their fortune and their fame should fix, 
And gallop in a coach and six.' " 

The world is probably not aware of the ingenuity, 
humor, good sense, and sly satire contained in many 
of the old English nursery tales. They have evi- 



166 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

dently been the sportive productions of able writers, 
who would not trust their names to productions that 
might be considered beneath their dignity. The pon- 
derous works on which they relied for immortality 
have perhaps sunk into oblivion, and carried their 
names down with them , while their unacknowledged 
offspring, "Jack the Giant Killer," "Giles Ginger- 
bread," and "Tom Thumb," flourish in wide-spread- 
ing and never-ceasing popularity. 

As Goldsmith had now acquired popularity and an 
extensive acquaintance, he attempted, with the ad- 
vice of his friends, to procure a more regular and 
ample support by resuming the medical profession. 
He accordingly launched himself upon the town in 
style; hired a man-servant; replenished his wardrobe 
at considerable expense, and appeared in a professional 
wig and cane, purple silk small-clothes, and a scarlet 
roquelaure 1 buttoned to the chin : a fantastic garb, as 
we should think at the present day, but not unsuited 
to the fashion of the times. 

With his sturdy little person thus arrayed in the 
unusual magnificence of purple and fine linen, and his 
scarlet roquelaure flaunting from his shoulders, he 
used to strut into the apartments of his patients sway- 
ing his three-cornered hat in one hand and his medical 
sceptre, the cane, in the other, and assuming an air of 
gravity and importance suited to the solemnity of his 
wig, at least, such is the picture given of him by the 
waiting gentlewoman who let him into the chamber 
of one of his lady patients. 

He soon, however, grew tired and impatient of the 
duties and restraints of his profession; his practice 

1 A loose cloak, thrown over the shoulders, and extending to 
the knees. Pronounced rok'-e-lor. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 167 

was chiefly among his friends, and the fees were not 
sufficient for his maintenance ; he was disgusted with 
attendance on sick-chambers and capricious patients, 
and looked back with longing to his tavern haunts 
and broad convivial meetings, from which the dignity 
and duties of his medical calling restrained him. At 
length, on prescribing to a lady of his acquaintance, 
who, to use a hackneyed phrase, "rejoiced" in the 
aristocratical name of Sidebotham, a warm dispute 
arose between him and the apothecary as to the quan- 
tity of medicine to be administered. The Doctor 
stood up for the rights and dignities of his profession, 
and resented the interference of the compounder of 
drugs. His rights and dignities, however, were dis- 
regarded; his wig and cane and scarlet roquelaure 
were of no avail, Mrs. Sidebotham sided with the 
hero of the pestle and mortar; and Goldsmith flung 
out of the house in a passion. "I am determined 
henceforth," said he to Topham Beauclerc, "to leave 
off prescribing for friends." "Do so, my dear doc- 
tor," was the reply; "whenever you undertake to kill, 
let it be only your enemies." 

This was the end of Goldsmith's medical career. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Publication of "The Vicar of Wakefield;" Opinions concerning 
It: of Dr. Johnson; of Rogers the Poet; of Goethe; Its 
Merits; Exquisite Extract. — Attack by Kenrick. — Reply — 
Book-Building. — Project of a Comedy. 

The success of the poem of "The Traveller," and 
the popularity which it had conferred on its author, 
now roused the attention of the bookseller in whose 



168 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

hands the novel of "The Vicar of Wakefield" had 
been slumbering for nearly two long years. The idea 
has generally prevailed that it was Mr. John Newbery 
to whom the manuscript had been sold, and much 
surprise has been expressed that he should be insen- 
sible to its merit and suffer it to remain unpublished, 
while putting forth various inferior writings by the 
same author. This, however, is a mistake ; it was his 
nephew, Francis Newbery, who had become the for- 
tunate purchaser. Still the delay is equally unac- 
countable. Some have imagined that the uncle and 
nephew had business arrangements together, in which 
this work was included, and that the elder Newbery, 
dubious of its success, retarded the publication until 
the full harvest of "The Traveller " should be reaped. 
Booksellers are prone to make egregious mistakes as 
to the merit of works in manuscript; and to under- 
value, if not reject, those of classic and enduring ex- 
cellence, when destitute of that false brilliancy com- 
monly called "effect." In the present instance, an 
intellect vastly superior to that of either of the book- 
sellers was equally at fault. Dr. Johnson, speaking 
of the work to Boswell, some time subsequent to its 
publication, observed, "I myself did not think it 
would have had much success. It was written and 
sold to a bookseller before ' The Traveller,' but pub- 
lished after, so little expectation had the bookseller 
from it. Had it been sold after 4 The Traveller, ' he 
might have had twice as much money; though sixty 
guineas was no mean price." 

Sixty guineas for "The Vicar of Wakefield! " and 
this could be pronounced no mean price by Dr. John- 
son, at that time the arbiter of British talent, and 
who had had an opportunity of witnessing the effect 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 169 

of the work upon the public mind; for its success 
was immediate. It came out on the 27th of March, 
1766; before the end of May a second edition was 
called for; in three months more, a third; and so it 
went on, widening in a popularity that has never 
flagged. Rogers, 1 the Nestor of British literature, 
whose refined purity of taste and exquisite mental 
organization rendered him eminently calculated to 
appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of all 
the books which through the fitful changes of three 
generations he had seen rise and fall, the charm of 
u The Vicar of Wakefield " had alone continued as at 
first; and could he revisit the world after an interval 
of many more generations, he should as surely look 
to find it undiminished. Nor has its celebrity been 
confined to Great Britain. Though so exclusively 
a picture of British scenes and manners, it has been 
translated into almost every language, and every- 
where its charm has been the same. Goethe, 2 the 
great genius of Germany, declared in his eighty -first 
year, that it was his delight at the age of twenty, that 
it had in a manner formed a part of his education, 
influencing his taste and feelings throughout life, and 
that he had recently read it again from beginning 
to end — with renewed delight, and with a grateful 
sense of the early benefit derived from it. 

1 Samuel Rogers (1763-1855), an English poet. He was re- 
cognized as an authority in literary matters. Nestor (in Homer) 
was the oldest and wisest of the leaders of the Greeks in the 
Trojan war. Rogers, who lived to be ninety-three years of age, 
is by metonymy called the Nestor of British literature. On the 
death of Wordsworth (1850), he was offered the Laureateship, 
which he declined on account of his age. 

2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), the illustrious 
German poet, dramatist, and prose-writer; author of Faust ; the 
greatest name in German literature. 



170 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

It is needless to expatiate upon the qualities of a 
work which has thus passed from country to country, 
and language to language, until it is now known 
throughout the whole reading world and is become 
a household book in every hand. The secret of its 
universal and enduring popularity is undoubtedly its 
truth to nature, but to nature of the most amiable 
kind, to nature such as Goldsmith saw it. The 
author, as we have occasionally shown in the course 
of this memoir, took his scenes and characters in this, 
as in his other writings, from originals in his own 
motley experience; but he has given them as seen 
through the medium of his own indulgent eye, and 
has set them forth with the colorings of his own good 
head and heart. Yet how contradictory it seems that 
this, one of the most delightful pictures of home and 
homefelt happiness, should be drawn by a homeless 
man ; that the most amiable picture of domestic vir- 
tue and all the endearments of the married state 
should be drawn by a bachelor, who had been severed 
from domestic life almost from boyhood; that one of 
the most tender, touching, and affecting appeals on 
behalf of female loveliness should have been made 
by a man whose deficiency in all the graces of person 
and manner seemed to mark him out for a cynical 1 
disparager of the sex. 

We cannot refrain from transcribing from the 
work a short passage illustrative of what we have 
said, and which within a wonderfully small compass 
comprises a world of beauty of imagery, tenderness 
of feeling, delicacy and refinement of thought, and 
matchless purity of style. The two stanzas which 

1 Like a Cynic, an ancient philosopher, supposed to be of a 
sour disposition. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 171 

conclude it, in which are told a whole history of 
woman's wrongs and sufferings, is, for pathos, sim- 
plicity, and euphony, a gem in the language. The 
scene depicted is where the poor Vicar is gathering 
around him the wrecks of his shattered family, and 
endeavoring to rally them back to happiness. 

"The next morning the sun arose with peculiar 
warmth for the season, so that we agreed to breakfast 
together on the honeysuckle bank; where, while we 
sat, my youngest daughter at my request joined her 
voice to the concert on the trees about us. It was in 
this place my poor Olivia first met her seducer, and 
every object served to recall her sadness. But that 
melancholy which is excited by objects of pleasure, or 
inspired by sounds of harmony, soothes the heart in- 
stead of corroding it. Her mother, too, upon this occa- 
sion, felt a pleasing distress, and wept and loved her 
daughter as before. l Do, my pretty Olivia,' cried 
she, ' let us have that melancholy air your father was 
so fond of ; your sister Sophy has already obliged us. 
Do, child, it will please your old father. ' She com- 
plied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me. 

" ' When lovely woman stoops to folly, 
And finds too late that men betray, 
What charm can soothe her melancholy, 
What art can wash her guilt away? 

" ' The only art her guilt to cover, 

To hide her shame from every eye, 
To give repentance to her lover, 

And wring his bosom — is to die.' " 1 

Scarce had the "Vicar of Wakefield " made its ap- 
pearance and been received with acclamation, than 
its author was subjected to one of the usual penalties 
1 Riverside Literature Series, p. 164. 



172 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

that attend success. He was attacked in the news- 
papers. In one of the chapters he had introduced 
his ballad of "The Hermit," of which, as we have 
mentioned, a few copies had been printed some con- 
siderable time previously for the use of the Countess 
of Northumberland. This brought forth the follow- 
ing article in a fashionable journal of the day: — 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE " ST. JAMES'S CHRONICLE." 

Sir, — In the "Reliques of Ancient Poetry," pub- 
lished about two years ago, is a very beautiful little 
ballad, called "A Friar of Orders Gray." The in- 
genious editor, Mr. Percy, supposes that the stanzas 
sung by Ophelia in the play of "Hamlet" were parts 
of some ballad well known in Shakespeare's time, 
and from these stanzas, with the addition of one or 
two of his own to connect them, he has formed the 
above-mentioned ballad; the subject of which is, a 
lady comes to a convent to inquire for her love who 
had been driven there by her disdain. She is an- 
swered by a friar that he is dead : — 

" No, no, he is dead, gone to his death's bed. 
He never will come again." 

The lady weeps and laments her cruelty; the friar 
endeavors to comfort her with morality and religion, 
but all in vain ; she expresses the deepest grief and 
the most tender sentiments of love, till at last the 
friar discovers himself : — 

" And lo! beneath this gown of gray 
Thy own true love appears." 

This catastrophe 1 is very fine, and the whole, 
joined with the greatest tenderness, has the greatest 

1 Used in the sense of " outcome." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 173 

simplicity; yet, though this ballad was so recently 
published in the "Ancient Reliques," Dr. Goldsmith 
has been hardy enough to publish a poem called 
"The Hermit," where the circumstances and catas- 
trophe are exactly the same, only with this difference, 
that the natural simplicity and tenderness of the origi- 
nal are almost entirely lost in the languid smoothness 
and tedious paraphrase of the copy, which is as short 
of the merits of Mr. Percy's ballad as the insipidity 
of negus l is to the genuine flavor of champagne. 
I am, sir, yours, etc., 

Detector. 

This attack, supposed to be by Goldsmith's con- 
stant persecutor, the malignant Kenrick, 2 drew from 
him the following note to the editor : — 

Sir, — As there is nothing I dislike so much as 
newspaper controversy, particularly upon trifles, per- 
mit me to be as concise as possible in informing a 
correspondent of yours that I recommended "Blain- 
ville's Travels " because I thought the book was a 
good one; and I think so still. I said I was told by 
the bookseller that it was then first published ; but in 
that it seems I was misinformed, and my reading was 
not extensive enough to set me right. 

Another correspondent of yours accuses me of hav- 
ing taken a ballad I published some time ago, from 
one by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not think 
there is any great resemblance between the two pieces 
in question. If there be any, his ballad was taken 
from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some years ago ; 

1 A mild form of punch. 

2 Kenrick was remembered by Goldsmith in the Retaliation. 



174 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

and he, as we both considered these things as trifles 
at best, told me, with his usual good-humor, the next 
time I saw him, that he had taken my plan to form 
the fragments of Shakespeare into a ballad of his 
own. He then read me his little Cento, 1 if I may so 
call it, and I highly approved it. Such petty anec- 
dotes as these are scarcely worth printing ; and, were 
it not for the busy disposition of some of your corre- 
spondents, the public should never have known that 
he owes me the hint of his ballad, or that I am 
obliged to his friendship and learning for communica- 
tions of a much more important nature. 

I am, sir, yours, etc., 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

The unexpected circulation of the "Vicar of 
Wakefield " enriched the publisher, but not the 
author. Goldsmith no doubt thought himself entitled 
to participate in the profits of the repeated editions; 
and a memorandum, still extant, shows that he drew 
upon Mr. Francis Newbery, in the month of June, 
for fifteen guineas, but that the bill was returned 
dishonored. He continued, therefore, his usual job- 
work for the booksellers, writing introductions, pre- 
faces, and head and tail pieces for new works ; revis- 
ing, touching up, and modifying travels and voyages ; 
making compilations of prose and poetry, and "build- 
ing books," as he sportively termed it. These tasks 
required little labor or talent, but that taste and touch 
which are the magic of gifted minds. His terms 
began to be proportioned to his celebrity. If his 

1 In music and literature, a cento (sen'-to) is a medley com- 
posed of fragments selected from the works of several composers 
or authors. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 175 

price was at any time objected to, "Why, sir," he 
would say, " it may seem large ; but then a man may 
be many years working in obscurity before his taste 
and reputation are fixed or estimated; and then he 
is, as in other professions, only paid for his previous 
labors." 

He was, however, prepared to try his fortune in 
a different walk of literature from any he had yet 
attempted. We have repeatedly adverted to his 
fondness for the drama; he was a frequent attendant 
at the theatres ; though, as we have shown, he consid- 
ered them under gross mismanagement. He thought, 
too, that a vicious taste prevailed among those who 
wrote for the stage. "A new species of dramatic 
composition," says he, in one of his essays, "has been 
introduced under the name of sentimental comedy, in 
which the virtues of private life are exhibited rather 
than the vices exposed ; and the distresses rather than 
the faults of mankind make our interest in the piece. 
In these plays almost all the characters are good, and 
exceedingly generous ; they are lavish enough of their 
tin money on the stage ; and though they want humor, 
have abundance of sentiment and feeling. If they 
happen to have faults or foibles, the spectator is 
taught not only to pardon, but to applaud them in 
consideration of the goodness of their hearts; so that 
folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, and 
the comedy aims at touching our passions, without 
the power of being truly pathetic. In this manner 
we are likely to lose one great source of entertainment 
on the stage ; for while the comic poet is invading the 
province of the tragic muse, he leaves her lively sister 
quite neglected. Of this, however, he is no ways so- 
licitous, as he measures his fame by his profits. . . . 



176 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"Humor at present seems to be departing from the 
stage; and it will soon happen that our comic players 
will have nothing left for it but a fine coat and a song. 
It depends upon the audience whether they will actu- 
ally drive these poor merry creatures from the stage, 
or sit at a play as gloomy as at the tabernacle. It is 
not easy to recover an art when once lost; and it will 
be a just punishment, that when, by our being too 
fastidious, we have banished humor from the stage, we 
should ourselves be deprived of the art of laughing." 1 

Symptoms of reform in the drama had recently 
taken place. The comedy of the "Clandestine Mar- 
riage," the joint production of Colman 2 and Garrick, 
and suggested by Hogarth's inimitable pictures of 
Marriage a la mode, 5 had taken the town by storm, 
crowded the theatre with fashionable audiences, and 
formed one of the leading literary topics of the year. 
Goldsmith's emulation was roused by its success. 
The comedy was, in what he considered the legitimate 
line, totally different from the sentimental school ; it 
presented pictures of real life, delineations of charac- 
ter and touches of humor, in which he felt himself cal- 
culated to excel. The consequence was, that in the 
course of this year (1766) he commenced a comedy 
of the same class, to be entitled the " Good-Natured 
Man," at which he diligently wrought whenever the 
hurried occupation of "book-building" allowed him 
leisure. 

1 Essays, No. xxxv. Prior ed. i. 378-380. 

2 George Colman the elder (1732-1794), an English drama- 
tist and theatrical manager, with whom Goldsmith had much to 
do. 

8 Marriage a la mode = marriage according to the fashion. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 177 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Social Position of Goldsmith; His Colloquial Contests with 
Johnson. — Anecdotes and Illustrations. 

The social position of Goldsmith had undergone 
a material change since the publication of "The 
Traveller." Before that event he was but partially- 
known as the author of some clever anonymous writ- 
ings, and had been a tolerated member of the club 
and the Johnson circle, without much being expected 
from him. Now he had suddenly risen to literary 
fame, and become one of the lions of the day. The 
highest regions of intellectual society were now open 
to him; but he was not prepared to move in them 
with confidence and success. Ballymahon had not 
been a good school of manners at the outset of life ; 
nor had his experience as a "poor student" at col- 
leges and medical schools contributed to give him the 
polish of society. He had brought from Ireland, as 
he said, nothing but his "brogue and his blunders," 
and they had never left him. He had travelled, it 
is true ; but the Continental tour which in those days 
gave the finishing grace to the education of a patri- 
cian youth, had, with poor Goldsmith, been little 
better than a course of literary vagabondizing. It 
had enriched his mind, deepened and widened the 
benevolence of his heart, and filled his memory with 
enchanting pictures, but it had contributed little to 
disciplining him for the polite intercourse of the 
world. His life in London had hitherto been a 
struggle with sordid cares and sad humiliations. 
"You scarcely can conceive," wrote he some time 
previously to his brother, "how much eight years of 



178 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

disappointment, anguish, and study have worn me 
down." Several more years had since been added 
to the term during which he had trod the lowly walks 
of life. He had been a tutor, an apothecary's drudge, 
a petty physician of the suburbs, a bookseller's hack, 
drudging for daily bread. Each separate walk had 
been beset by its peculiar thorns and humiliations. 
It is wonderful how his heart retained its gentleness 
and kindness through all these trials ; how his mind 
rose above the "meannesses of poverty," to which, 
as he says, he was compelled to submit ; but it would 
be still more wonderful, had his manners acquired a 
tone corresponding to the innate grace and refinement 
of his intellect. He was near forty years of age 
when he published "The Traveller," and was lifted 
by it into celebrity. As is beautifully said of him 
by one of his biographers, "he has fought his way to 
consideration and esteem; but he bears upon him the 
scars of his twelve years' conflict; of the mean sor- 
rows through which he has passed ; and of the cheap 
indulgences he has sought relief and help from. There 
is nothing plastic in his nature now. His manners 
and habits are completely formed ; and in them any 
further success can make little favorable change, 
whatever it may effect for his mind or genius." 1 

We are not to be surprised, therefore, at finding 
him make an awkward figure in the elegant drawing- 
rooms which were now open to him, and disappoint- 
ing those who had formed an idea of him from the 
fascinating ease and gracefulness of his poetry. 

Even the literary club, and the circle of which it 
formed a part, after their surprise at the intellectual 
flights of which he showed himself capable, fell into 
1 Forster's Goldsmith. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 179 

a conventional mode of judging and talking of him, 
and of placing him in absurd and whimsical points of 
view. His very celebrity operated here to his disad- 
vantage. It brought him into continual comparison 
with Johnson, who was the oracle of that circle and 
had given it a tone. Conversation was the great 
staple there, and of this Johnson was a master. He 
had been a reader and thinker from childhood : his 
melancholy temperament, which unfitted him for the 
pleasures of youth, had made him so. For many 
years past, the vast variety of works he had been 
obliged to consult in preparing his Dictionary had 
stored an uncommonly retentive memory with facts on 
all kinds of subjects, making it a perfect colloquial 
armory. "He had all his life," says Boswell, "ha- 
bituated himself to consider conversation as a trial 
of intellectual vigor and skill. He had disciplined 
himself as a talker as well as a writer, making it a 
rule to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible 
language he could put it in, so that, by constant prac- 
tice and never suffering any careless expression to es- 
cape him, he had attained an extraordinary accuracy 
and command of language." 

His conversation in all companies, according to 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, was such as to secure him uni- 
versal attention, something above the usual colloquial 
style being always expected from him. 

"I do not care," said Orme, 1 the historian of Hin- 
dostan, "on what subject Johnson talks; but I love 
better to hear him talk than anybody. He either 
gives you new thoughts or a new coloring." 

1 Author of a History of the Military Transactions of the British 
Nation in Indostan from 17^5; published between 1763 and 
1778. 



180 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

A stronger and more graphic eulogium is given by 
Dr. Percy. "The conversation of Johnson," says he, 
"is strong and clear, and may be compared to an an- 
tique statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct 
and clear." 

Such was the colloquial giant with which Gold- 
smith's celebrity and his habits of intimacy brought 
him into continual comparison; can we wonder that 
he should appear to disadvantage? Conversation 
grave, discursive, and disputatious, such as Johnson 
excelled and delighted in, was to him a severe task, 
and he never was good at a task of any kind. He 
had not, like Johnson, a vast fund of acquired facts 
to draw upon; nor a retentive memory to furnish 
them forth when wanted. He could not, like the 
great lexicographer, mould his ideas and balance his 
periods while talking. He had a flow of ideas, but 
it was apt to be hurried and confused ; and, as he said 
of himself, he had contracted a hesitating and dis- 
agreeable manner of speaking. He used to say that 
he always argued best when he argued alone ; that is 
to say, he could master a subject in his study, with 
his pen in his hand; but when he came into company 
he grew confused, and was unable to talk about it. 
Johnson made a remark concerning him to somewhat 
of the same purport. "No man," said he, "is more 
foolish than Goldsmith when he has not a pen in his 
hand, or more wise when he has." Yet with all this 
conscious deficiency he was continually getting in- 
volved in colloquial contests with Johnson and other 
prime talkers of the literary circle. He felt that he 
had become a notoriety, that he had entered the lists 
and was expected to make fight ; so with that heed- 
lessness which characterized him in everything else 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 181 

he dashed on at a venture, trusting to chance in this 
as in other things, and hoping occasionally to make 
a lucky hit. Johnson perceived his haphazard temer- 
ity, but gave him no credit for the real diffidence 
which lay at bottom. "The misfortune of Goldsmith 
in conversation," said he, "is this, he goes on with- 
out knowing how he is to get off. His genius is 
great, but his knowledge is small. As they say of a 
generous man it is a pity he is not rich, we may say 
of Goldsmith it is a pity he is not knowing. He 
would not keep his knowledge to himself." And, on 
another occasion, he observes: "Goldsmith, rather 
than not talk, will talk of what he knows himself to 
be ignorant, which can only end in exposing him. 
If in company with two founders, he would fall 
a-talking on the method of making cannon, though 
both of them would soon see that he did not know 
what metal a cannon is made of." And again: 
" Goldsmith should not be forever attempting to shine 
in conversation; he has not temper for it, he is so 
much mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes 
is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man 
may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth 
part of his wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself 
against another, is like a man laying a hundred to 
one, who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth 
a man's while. A man should not lay a hundred to 
one unless he can easily spare it, though he has a 
hundred chances for him ; he can get but a guinea, 
and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this 
state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is 
a very little addition to a man of his literary reputa- 
tion; if he does not get the better, he is miserably 
vexed." 



182 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to 
blame in producing this vexation. " Goldsmith, " said 
Miss Reynolds, "always appeared to be overawed by 
Johnson, particularly when in company with people 
of any consequence ; always as if impressed with fear 
of disgrace ; and indeed well he might. I have been 
witness to many mortifications he has suffered in Dr. 
Johnson's company." 

It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but 
rudeness. The great lexicographer, spoiled by the 
homage of society, was still more prone than himself 
to lose temper when the argument went against him. 
He could not brook appearing to be worsted, but 
would attempt to bear down his adversary by the 
rolling thunder of his periods, and, when that failed, 
would become downright insulting. Boswell called 
it "having recourse to some sudden mode of robust 
sophistry; " but Goldsmith designated it much more 
happily. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said 
he, "fori when his pistol misses fre, he knocks you 
down with the butt end of it." * 

In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by 
Boswell as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, it really appears 
to us that Goldsmith had the best both of the wit 
and the argument, and especially of the courtesy and 
good nature. 

On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capi- 
tal reproof as to his own colloquial peculiarities. 
Talking of fables, Goldsmith observed that the ani- 

1 The following is given by Boswell, as an instance of robust 
sophistry: " Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible 
advantage, he stopped me thus : • My dear Boswell, let's have 
no more of this; you '11 make nothing of it; I 'd rather hear you 
whistle a Scotch tune.' " 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 183 

mals introduced in them seldom talked in character. 
"For instance," said he, "the fable of the little fishes, 
who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying 
them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. 
The skill consists in making them talk like little 
fishes." Just then observing that Dr. Johnson was 
shaking his sides and laughing, he immediately 
added, "Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as 
you seem to think; for, if you were to make little 
fishes talk, they would talk like whales." 

But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifica- 
tions in society from the overbearing and sometimes 
harsh conduct of Johnson, he always did justice to 
his benevolence. When royal pensions were granted 
to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Shebbeare, a punster re- 
marked that the king had pensioned a she-bear and 
a he-bear ; to which Goldsmith replied, "Johnson, to 
be sure, has a roughness in his manner, but no man 
alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of 
the bear but the skin." 

Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he 
least thought of shining ; when he gave up all effort 
to appear wise and learned, or to cope with the orac- 
ular sententiousness of Johnson, and give way to his 
natural impulses. Even Bos well could perceive his 
merits on these occasions. "For my part," said he, 
condescendingly, "I like very well to hear honest 
Goldsmith talk away carelessly; " and many a much 
wiser man than Boswell delighted in those outpour- 
ings of a fertile fancy and a generous heart. In his 
happy moods, Goldsmith had an artless simplicity 
and buoyant good4iumor that led to a thousand 
amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much 
to the entertainment of his intimates; yet in his most 



184 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

thoughtless garrulity there was occasionally the gleam 
of the gold and the flash of the diamond. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Social Resorts. — The Shilling Whist-Club. — A Practical Joke. 
— The Wednesday Club. — The "Tun of Man." — The Pig 
Butcher. — Tom King. — Hugh Kelly. — Glover and His 
Characteristics. 

Though Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him 
to mingle occasionally with high society, and to en- 
gage in the colloquial conflicts of the learned circle, 
in both of which he was ill at ease and conscious of 
being undervalued, yet he had some social resorts in 
which he indemnified himself for their restraints by 
indulging his humor without control. One of them 
was a shilling whist-club, which held its meetings at 
the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, a place rendered 
classic, we are told, by a club held there in old times, 
to which "rare Ben Jonson" 1 had furnished the 
rules. The company was of a familiar, unceremo- 
nious kind, delighting in that very questionable wit 
which consists in playing off practical jokes upon 
each other. Of one of these Goldsmith was made 
the butt. Coming to the club one night in a hackney 
coach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea 
instead of a shilling, which he set down at a dead 
loss, for there was no likelihood, he said, that a fel- 
low of this class would have the honesty to return the 
money. On the next club evening he was told a 

1 A dramatist, ranked among his contemporaries next to Shake- 
speare. The quotation is from the inscription on his slab in 
Westminster Abbey. He died in 1637. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 185 

person at the street door wished to speak with him. 
He went forth, but soon returned with a radiant coun- 
tenance. To his surprise and delight the coachman 
had actually brought back the guinea. While he 
launched forth in praise of this unlooked-for piece of 
honesty, he declared it ought not to go unrewarded. 
Collecting a small sum from the club, and no doubt 
increasing it largely from his own purse, he dismissed 
the Jehu 1 with many encomiums on his good con- 
duct. He was still chanting his praises, when one of 
the club requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly 
returned. To Goldsmith's confusion it proved to be 
a counterfeit. The universal burst of laughter which 
succeeded, and the jokes by which he was assailed on 
every side, showed him that the whole was a hoax, and 
the pretended coachman as much a counterfeit as the 
guinea. He was so disconcerted, it is said, that he soon 
beat a retreat for the evening. 

Another of those free and easy clubs met on 
Wednesday evenings at the Globe Tavern in Fleet 
Street. It was somewhat in the style of the Three 
Jolly Pigeons: songs, jokes, dramatic imitations, 
burlesque parodies, and broad sallies of humor, 
formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedan- 
tic casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned 
circle. Here a huge "tun of man," by the name of 
Gordon, used to delight Goldsmith by singing the 
jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and looking like 
a butt of it. Here, too, a wealthy pig butcher, 
charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of 

1 Jehu was king of Israel. The name, as applied to a reck- 
less coachman, is probably based on the following quotation: 
"The driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi; for 
he driveth furiously." 2 Kings ix. 20. 



186 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"The Traveller," aspired to be on the most sociable 
footing with the author; and here was Tom King, 
the comedian, recently risen to consequence by his 
performance of Lord Ogleby in the new comedy of 
"The Clandestine Marriage." 

A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, 1 a 
second-rate author, who, as he became a kind of com- 
petitor of Goldsmith's, deserves particular mention. 
He was an Irishman, about twenty-eight years of 
age, originally apprenticed to a staymaker in Dublin ; 
then writer to a London attorney; then a Grub- 
Street hack; scribbling for magazines and newspa- 
pers. Of late he had set up for theatrical censor 
and satirist, and in a paper called "Thespis," in 
emulation of Churchill's "Rosciad," had harassed 
many of the poor actors without mercy, and often 
without wit ; but had lavished his incense on Garrick, 
who, in consequence, took him into favor. He was 
the author of several works of superficial merit, but 
which had sufficient vogue to inflate his vanity. 
This, however, must have been mortified on his first 
introduction to Johnson; after sitting a short time 
he got up to take leave, expressing a fear that a 
longer visit might be troublesome. "Not in the least, 
sir," said the surly moralist, "I had forgotten you 
were in the room." Johnson used to speak of him 
as a man who had written more than he had read. 

A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's 
poor countrymen and hangers-on, by the name of 
Glover. He had originally been educated for the 
medical profession, but had taken in early life to 
the stage, though apparently without much success. 
While performing at Cork, he undertook, partly in 
1 See chapter xxii. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 187 

jest, to restore life to the body of a malefactor who 
had just been executed. To the astonishment of 
every one, himself among the number, he succeeded. 
The miracle took wind. He abandoned the stage, 
resumed the wig and cane, and considered his fortune 
as secure. Unluckily, there were not many dead 
people to be restored to life in Ireland; his practice 
did not equal his expectation, so he came to London, 
where he continued to dabble indifferently, and 
rather unprofitably, in physic and literature. 

He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil 
taverns, where he used to amuse the company by his 
talent at story-telling and his powers of mimicry, 
giving capital imitations of Garrick, Foote, Colman, 
Sterne, 1 and other public characters of the day. He 
seldom happened to have money enough to pay his 
reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready 
purse among those who had been amused by his hu- 
mors. Goldsmith, of course, was one of the readiest. 
It was through him that Glover was admitted to the 
Wednesday Club, of which his theatrical imitations 
became the delight. Glover, however, was a little 
anxious for the dignity of his patron, which appeared 
to him to suffer from the over-familiarity of some of 
the members of the club. He was especially shocked 
by the free and easy tone in which Goldsmith was 
addressed by the pig butcher. "Come, Noll," would 
he say, as he pledged him, "here 's my service to 
you, old boy! " % 

Glover whispered to Goldsmith, that heVi' should 
not allow such liberties." "Let him alone," was the 

1 Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), an English clergyman and 
author ; Irish by birth ; author of Tristram Shandy and the 

Sentimental Journey. ^^k/ 



188 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

reply, "you'll see how civilly I'll let him down." 
After a time, he called out, with marked ceremony 
and politeness, "Mr. B., I have the honor of drink- 
ing your good health." Alas! dignity was not poor 
Goldsmith's forte: he could keep no one at a dis- 
tance. "Thank'ee, thank'ee, Noll," nodded the pig 
butcher, scarce taking the pipe out of his mouth. 
"I don't see the effect of your reproof," whispered 
Glover. "I give it up," replied Goldsmith, with a 
good-humored shrug; "I ought to have known before 
now there is no putting a pig in the right way." 

Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for 
mingling in those motley circles, observing that, 
having been originally poor, he had contracted a love 
for low company. Goldsmith, however, was guided 
not by a taste for what was low, but for what was 
comic and characteristic. It was the feeling of the 
artist ; the feeling which furnished out some of his 
best scenes in familiar life ; the feeling with which 
"rare Ben Jonson " sought these very haunts and cir- 
cles in days of yore, to study "Every Man in his 
Humor." 

It was not always, however, that the humor of these 
associates was to his taste : as they became boisterous 
in their merriment, he was apt to become depressed. 
"The company of fools," says he, in one of his essays, 
"may at first make us smile, but at last never fails of 
making us melancholy." "Often he would become 
moody," says Glover, "and would leave the party 
abruptly to go home and brood over his misfortune." 

It is possible, however, that he went home for quite 
a different purpose : to commit to paper some scene or 
passage suggested for his comedy of "The Good-Na- 
tured Man." The elaboration of humor is often a 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 189 

most serious task; and we have never witnessed a 
more perfect picture of mental misery than was once 
presented to us by a popular dramatic writer — still, 
we hope, living — whom we found in the agonies of 
producing a farce which subsequently set the theatres 
in a roar. 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Great Cham of Literature and the King. — Scene at Sir 
Joshua Reynolds's. — Goldsmith accused of Jealousy. — Nego- 
tiations with Garrick. — The Author and the Actor ; their 
Correspondence. 

The comedy of "The Good-Natured Man" was 
completed by Goldsmith early in 1767, and submitted 
to the perusal of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and others 
of the literary club, by whom it was heartily approved. 
Johnson, who was seldom half-way either in censure 
or applause, pronounced it the best comedy that had 
been written since "The Provoked Husband," and 
promised to furnish the prologue. This immediately 
became an object of great solicitude with Goldsmith, 
knowing the weight an introduction from the Great 
Cham 1 of literature would have with the public ; but 
circumstances occurred which he feared might drive 
the comedy and the prologue from Johnson's thoughts. 
The latter was in the habit of visiting the royal library 
at the Queen's (Buckingham) House, a noble collec- 
tion of books, in the formation of which he had assisted 
the librarian, Mr. Bernard, with his advice. One 
evening, as he was seated there by the fire reading, 
lie was surprised by the entrance of the King (George 
1 Dr. Johnson. For Cham, see note p. 127. 



190 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

III.), then a young man, who sought this occasion to 
have a conversation with him. The conversation was 
varied and discursive, the king shifting from subject 
to subject according to his wont. " During the whole 
interview," says Boswell, "Johnson talked to his 
Majesty with profound respect, but still in his open, 
manly manner, with a sonorous voice, and never in 
that subdued tone which is commonly used at the levee 
and in the drawing-room. 'I found his Majesty wished 
I should talk,' said he, 'and I made it my business to 
talk. I find it does a man good to be talked to by 
his sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in 
a passion.' " It would have been well for Johnson's 
colloquial disputants, could he have often been under 
such decorous restraint. Profoundly monarchical in 
his principles, he retired from the interview highly 
gratified with the conversation of the King and with 
his gracious behavior. "Sir," said he to the libra- 
rian, "they may talk of the King as they will, but he 
is the finest gentleman 1 have ever seen." — "Sir," 
said he subsequently to Bennet Langton, "his man- 
ners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may sup- 
pose Louis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second." 

While Johnson's face was still radiant with the 
reflex of royalty, he was holding forth one day to a 
listening group at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, who were 
anxious to hear every particular of this memorable 
conversation. Among other questions, the King had 
asked him whether he was writing anything. His re- 
ply was, that he thought he had already done his part 
as a writer. "I should have thought so, too," said 
the King, "if you had not written so well." — "No 
man," said Johnson, commenting on this speech, 
"could have made a handsomer compliment; and it 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 191 

was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive." — " But 
did you make no reply to this high compliment? " 
asked one of the company. "No, sir," replied the 
profoundly deferential Johnson ; " when the King had 
said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy 
civilities with my sovereign." 

During all the time that Johnson was thus holding 
forth, Goldsmith, who was present, appeared to take 
no interest in the royal theme, but remained seated on 
a sofa at a distance, in a moody fit of abstraction; 
at length recollecting himself, he sprang up, and ad- 
vancing, exclaimed, with what Boswell calls his usual 
"frankness and simplicity," "Well, you acquitted 
yourself in this conversation better than I should have 
done, for I should have bowed and stammered through 
the whole of it." He afterwards explained his seem- 
ing inattention by saying that his mind was completely 
occupied about his play, and by fears lest Johnson, in 
his present state of royal excitement, would fail to 
furnish the much-desired prologue. 

How natural and truthful is this explanation ! Yet 
Boswell presumes to pronounce Goldsmith's inatten- 
tion affected, and attributes it to jealousy. "It was 
strongly suspected," says he, "that he was fretting 
with chagrin and envy at the singular honor Dr. 
Johnson had lately enjoyed." It needed the little- 
ness of mind of Boswell to ascribe such pitiful mo- 
tives to Goldsmith, and to entertain such exaggerated 
notions of the honor paid to Dr. Johnson. 

"The Good-Natured Man " was now ready for per- 
formance, but the question was, how to get it upon 
the stage. The affairs of Covent Garden, 1 for which 

1 A theatre in Bow Street near Covent Garden, London, built 
in 1731 ; Colman bought it for £60,000 in 1767. 



192 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

it had been intended, were thrown into confusion by 
the recent death of Rich, the manager. Drury Lane 
was under the management of Garrick ; but a feud, 
it will be recollected, existed between him and the 
poet, from the animadversions of the latter on the 
mismanagement of theatrical affairs, and the refusal 
of the former to give the poet his vote for the sec- 
retaryship of the Society of Arts. Times, however, 
were changed. Goldsmith, when that feud took place, 
was an auonymous writer, almost unknown to fame, 
and of no circulation in society. Now he had become 
a literary lion ; he was a member of the Literary Club ; 
he was the associate of Johnson, Burke, Topham Beau- 
clerc, and other magnates, — in a word, he had risen 
to consequence in the public eye, and of course was of 
consequence in the eyes of David Garrick. Sir Joshua 
Reynolds saw the lurking scruples of pride existing 
between the author and actor, and thinking it a pity 
that two men of such congenial talents, and who might 
be so serviceable to each other, should be kept asunder 
by a worn-out pique, exerted his friendly offices to 
bring them together. The meeting took place in Rey- 
nolds's house in Leicester Square. Garrick, however, 
could not entirely put off the mock majesty of the stage ; 
he meant to be civil, but he was rather too gracious 
and condescending. Tom Davies, in his "Life of 
Garrick," gives an amusing picture of the coming to- 
gether of these punctilious parties. "The manager," 
says he, "was fully conscious of his (Goldsmith's) 
merit, and perhaps more ostentatious of his abilities 
to serve a dramatic author than became a man of his 
prudence; Goldsmith was, on his side, as fully per- 
suaded of his own importance and independent great- 
ness. Mr. Garrick, who had so long been treated 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 193 

with the complimentary language paid to a successful 
patentee and admired actor, expected that the writer 
would esteem the patronage of his play a favor; Gold- 
smith rejected all ideas of kindness in a bargain that 
was intended to be of mutual advantage to both par- 
ties, and in this he was certainly justifiable; Mr. Gar- 
rick could reasonably expect no thanks for the acting 
a new play, which he would have rejected if he had 
not been convinced it would have amply rewarded his 
pains and expense. I believe the manager was will- 
ing to accept the play, but he wished to be courted to 
it; and the Doctor was not disposed to purchase his 
friendship by the resignation of his sincerity." They 
separated, however, with an understanding on the part 
of Goldsmith that his play would be acted. The 
conduct of Garrick subsequently proved evasive, not 
through any lingerings of past hostility, but from 
habitual indecision in matters of the kind, and from 
real scruples of delicacy. He did not think the piece 
likely to succeed on the stage, and avowed that opin- 
ion to Reynolds and Johnson, — but hesitated to say 
as much to Goldsmith, through fear of wounding his 
feelings. A further misunderstanding was the result 
of this want of decision and frankness ; repeated inter- 
views and some correspondence took place without 
bringing matters to a point, and in the meantime the 
theatrical season passed away. 

Goldsmith's pocket, never well supplied, suffered 
grievously by this delay, and he considered himself 
entitled to call upon the manager, who still talked of 
acting the play, to advance him forty pounds upon a 
note of the younger Newbery. Garrick readily com- 
plied, but subsequently suggested certain important 
alterations in the comedy as indispensable to its sue- 



194 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

cess; these were indignantly rejected by the author, 
but pertinaciously insisted on by the manager. Gar- 
rick proposed to leave the matter to the arbitration of 
Whitehead, 1 the laureate, who officiated as his "read- 
er " and elbow -critic. Goldsmith was more indignant 
than ever, and a violent dispute ensued, which was 
only calmed by the interference of Burke and Rey- 
nolds. 

Just at this time, order came out of confusion in the 
affairs of Covent Garden. A pique having risen be- 
tween Colman and Garrick, in the course of their joint 
authorship of "The Clandestine Marriage," the for- 
mer had become manager and part-proprietor of Co- 
vent Garden, and was preparing to open a powerful 
competition with his former colleague. On hearing 
of this, Goldsmith made overtures to Colman; who, 
without waiting to consult his fellow-proprietors, who 
were absent, gave instantly a favorable reply. Gold- 
smith felt the contrast of this warm, encouraging con- 
duct to the chilling delays and objections of Garrick. 
He at once abandoned his piece to the discretion of 
Colman. "Dear sir," says he, in a letter dated Tem- 
ple Garden Court, July 9th, " I am very much obliged 
to you for your kind partiality in my favor, and your 
tenderness in shortening the interval of my expecta- 
tion. That the play is liable to many objections I 
well know, but I am happy that it is in hands the 
most capable in the world of removing them. If then, 
dear sir, you will complete your favor by putting the 
piece into such a state as it may be acted, or of direct- 
ing me how to do it, I shall ever retain a sense of your 

1 William Whitehead (1715-1785) was appointed poet laure- 
ate in 1751. As he had little merit as a poet, Goldsmith took 
Garrick's proposal as an aifront. 



olive: th. 

goodness to me. And indeed, though most probably 
this be the la^t I shall ever write, yet I can": 
feeling a secret satisfaction that poets for the future 
are likely to have a protector who declines taking ad- 
vantage of their dreadful situation — and scorns that 
importance which may be acquired by trifling 
their anxir::^." 

The next day Goldsmith wi ite bo Garrick. who was 
a: Litchfield, informing him of his having transferred 
ent Garden, for which it had been 
originally written, and by : i which it was 

claimed, observing, "As I found you had very gi 
difficulties about that piece, I complied with his de- 
sire. ... I am extremely sorry that you should think 
me warm at our last m- our judgment certainly 

ought to be free, especially in a matter 
some measure concern your own credit and intr 
I assure you, sir. I have no disposition to differ with 
you on this or any other account, but am, with an 
high opinion of your abilities, and a very real e^: 

soft huml- ant. — Oltyxe 

i :■ SMITH." 
In his reply Garrick observed. "I was, indeed, 
much hurt that your warmth at our last meeting 
mistook DV :e and friendly attention to your 

play for the m :f a former misunderstanding, 

which I had as much forgot as if it had never ex>: L 
What I said to you at my own house I now repeat, 
that I felt more pain in giving my sentiments, than 
you possibly would in receiving them. It has been 
the business, and ever will be, of my life to live 
on the best terms with men of genius: and I know 
that Dr. Goldsmith will have no reason to change 

towards me. 



196 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

shall be glad of every future opportunity to convince 
him how mnch I am his obedient servant and well- 
wisher. — D. Garrick." 



CHAPTER XXI. 

More Hack-authorship. — Tom Davie s and the Roman History. 
— Canonbury Castle. — Political Authorship. — Pecuniary 
Temptation. — Death of Newbery the Elder. 

Though Goldsmith's comedy was now in train to be 
performed, it could not be brought out before Christ- 
mas ; in the meantime he must live. Again, there- 
fore, he had to resort to literary jobs for his daily 
support. These obtained for him petty occasional 
sums, the largest of which was ten pounds, from the 
elder Newbery, for an historical compilation ; but this 
scanty rill of quasi patronage, so sterile in its products, 
was likely soon to cease; Newbery being too ill to 
attend to business, and having to transfer the whole 
management of it to his nephew. 

At this time Tom Davies, the sometime Roscius, 
sometime bibliopole, 1 stepped forward to Goldsmith's 
relief, and proposed that he should undertake an easy 
popular history of Rome in two volumes. An arrange- 
ment was soon made. Goldsmith undertook to com- 
plete it in two years, if possible, for two hundred and 
fifty guineas, and forthwith set about his task with 
cheerful alacrity. As usual, he sought a rural retreat 
during the summer months, where he might alternate 
his literary labors with strolls about the green fields. 
"Merry Islington" was again his resort, but he now 
aspired to better quarters than formerly, and engaged 
1 Bookseller. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 197 

the chambers occupied occasionally by Mr. Newbery, 
in Canonbury House, or Castle, as it is popularly 
called. This had been a hunting lodge of Queen 
Elizabeth, in whose time it was surrounded by parks 
and forests. In Goldsmith's day, nothing remained 
of it but an old brick tower ; it was still in the country 
amid rural scenery, and was a favorite nestling-place 
of authors, publishers, and others of the literary order. 1 
A number of these he had for fellow-occupants of the 
castle ; and they formed a temporary club, which 
held its meetings at the Crown Tavern, on the Is- 
lington lower road; and here he presided in his own 
genial style, and was the life and delight of the com- 
pany. 

The writer 2 of these pages visited old Canonbury 
Castle some years since, out of regard to the memory 
of Goldsmith. The apartment was still shown which 
the poet had inhabited, consisting of a sitting-room 
and small bedroom, with panelled wainscots and Gothic 
windows. The quaintness and quietude of the place 
were still attractive. It was one of the resorts of citi- 
zens on their Sunday walks, who would ascend to the 
top of the tower and amuse themselves with recon- 

1 See on the distant slope, majestic shows 
Old Canonbury's tower, an ancient pile 
To various fates assigned ; and where by turns 
Meanness and grandeur have alternate reign'd ; 
Thither, in latter days, hath genius fled 
From yonder city, to respire and die. 
There the sweet bard of Auburn sat, and tuned 
The plaintive moanings of his village dirge. 
There learned Chambers treasured lore for men. 
And Newbery there his A-B-C's for babes. 

2 Irving's visit to Canonbury Castle is mentioned in "The 
Poor-Devil Author," Tales of a Traveller. 



198 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

noitring the city through a telescope. Not far from 
this tower were the gardens of the White Conduit 
House, a Cockney l Elysium, where Goldsmith used 
to figure in the humbler days of his fortune. In the 
first edition of his Essays he speaks of a stroll in these 
gardens, where he at that time, no doubt, thought 
himself in perfectly genteel society. After his rise in 
the world, however, he became too knowing to speak of 
such plebeian haunts. In a new edition of his Essays, 
therefore, the White Conduit House and its gardens 
disappear, and he speaks of "a stroll in the Park." 

While Goldsmith was literally living from hand to 
mouth by the forced drudgery of the pen, his independ- 
ence of spirit was subjected to a sore pecuniary trial. 
It was the opening of Lord North's administration, a 
time of great political excitement. The public mind 
was agitated by the question of American taxation, 
and other questions of like irritating tendency. Ju- 
nius 2 and Wilkes 3 and other powerful writers were 

1 A term of contempt applied to one " born within the sound 
of Bow-Bell, — that is, within the City of London." 

2 The anonymous author of a series of letters published dur- 
ing the middle of the eighteenth century, in which various public 
men were attacked with great bitterness and ability. "Junius" 
has never been fully identified, although he is quite generally 
supposed to have been Sir Philip Francis. 

8 John Wilkes (1727-1797), an English politician and agita- 
tor. In 1762, he founded the North Briton newspaper, in which 
he savagely attacked the ministry of Lord Bute. He was impris- 
oned for the famous No. 45, in which the king was attacked ; 
and upon his release became a popular hero. He was elected to 
Parliament, expelled and reelected again and again. His career 
deserves to be studied, because, while he was far from being a 
great or an estimable man, the persecution to which he was sub- 
jected did much toward the establishment of personal liberty. 
He was Lord Mayor in 1775. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 199 

attacking the administration with all their force; Grub 
Street was stirred up to its lowest depths ; inflamma- 
tory talent of all kinds was in full activity, and the 
kingdom was deluged with pamphlets, lampoons, and 
libels of the grossest kinds. The ministry were look- 
ing anxiously round for literary support. It was 
thought that the pen of Goldsmith might be readily 
enlisted. His hospitable friend and countryman, Rob- 
ert Nugent, politically known as Squire Gawky, had 
come out strenuously for colonial taxation ; had been 
selected for a lordship of the board of trade, and raised 
to the rank of Baron Nugent and Viscount Clare. His 
example, it was thought, would be enough of itself to 
bring Goldsmith into the ministerial ranks; and then 
what writer of the day was proof against a full purse 
or a pension? Accordingly one Parson Scott, 1 chap- 
lain to Lord Sandwich, and author of "Anti-Sejanus 
Panurge," and other political libels in support of the 
administration, was sent to negotiate with the poet, 
who at this time was returned to town. Dr. Scott, in 
after years, when his political subserviency had been 
rewarded by two fat crown -livings, 2 used to make 
what he considered a good story out of this embassy to 
the poet. "I found him," said he, "in a miserable 

1 James Scott (1733 -1814), in 1765, under the influence of 
Lord Sandwich (1718-1792), one of the principal secretaries of 
state (1763-1765), contributed, over the pen name of Anti- 
Sejanus, to the Public Advertiser, a series of very animated arti- 
cles attacking Lord Bute, who was the secret adviser of George 
III. Sejanus was the unscrupulous minister of Tiberius, Roman 
emperor from A. D. 14 to 37. Panurge is an important charac- 
ter in Rabelais 's famous satirical work, the History of Gargantua 
and Pantagruel. 

2 Crown-livings ; i. e., livings, or parishes in the gift of the 
crown, of which there are many in England. 



200 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

suit of chambers, in the Temple. I told him my au- 
thority : I told how I was empowered to pay most lib- 
erally for his exertions ; and, would you believe it ! he 
was so absurd as to say, 'I can earn as much as will 
supply my wants without writing for any party; the 
assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to me ; ' 
— and so I left him in his garret! " Who does not 
admire the sturdy independence of poor Goldsmith 
toiling in his garret for nine guineas the job, and 
smile with contempt at the indignant wonder of the 
political divine, albeit his subserviency was repaid by 
two fat crown -livings ? 

Not long after this occurrence, Goldsmith's old 
friend, though frugal-handed employer, Newbery, of 
picture-book renown, closed his mortal career. The 
poet has celebrated him as the friend of all mankind; 
he certainly lost nothing by his friendship. He coined 
the brains of his authors in the times of their exigency, 
and made them pay dear for the plank put out to keep 
them from drowning. It is not likely his death caused 
much lamentation among the scribbling tribe ; we may 
express decent respect for the memory of the just, but 
we shed tears only at the grave of the generous. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Theatrical Manoeuvring. — The Comedy of "False Delicacy." 
— First Performance of "The Good-Natured Man." — Con- 
duct of Johnson. — Conduct of the Author. — Intermeddling 
of the Press. 

The comedy of "The Good-Natured Man" was 
doomed to experience delays and difficulties to the very 
last. Garrick, notwithstanding his professions, had 
still a lurking grudge against the author, and tasked 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 201 

his managerial arts to thwart him in his theatrical 
enterprise. For this purpose he undertook to build 
up Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith's boon companion of the 
Wednesday club, as a kind of rival. Kelly had written 
a comedy called "False Delicacy," in which were em- 
bodied all the meretricious qualities of the sentimental 
school. Garrick, though he had decried that school, 
and had brought out his comedy of "The Clandestine 
Marriage" in opposition to it, now lauded "False 
Delicacy " to the skies, and prepared to bring it out 
at Drury Lane with all possible stage effect. He 
even went so far as to write a prologue and epilogue 
for it, and to touch up some parts of the dialogue. 
He had become reconciled to his former colleague, 
Colman, and it is intimated that one condition in the 
treaty of peace between these potentates of the realms 
of pasteboard (equally prone to play into each other's 
hands with the confederate potentates on the great 
theatre of life) was, that Goldsmith's play should be 
kept back until Kelly's had been brought forward. 

In the mean time the poor author, little dreaming of 
the deleterious influence at work behind the scenes, 
saw the appointed time arrive and pass by without the 
performance of his play; while "False Delicacy " was 
brought out at Drury Lane (January 23, 1768) with 
all the trickery of managerial management. Houses 
were packed to applaud it to the echo ; the newspapers 
vied with each other in their venal praises, and night 
after night seemed to give it a fresh triumph. 

While "False Delicacy" was thus borne on the 
full tide of fictitious prosperity, "The Good-Natured 
Man " was creeping through the last rehearsals at 
Covent Garden. The success of the rival piece threw 
a clamp upon author, manager, and actors. Gold- 



202 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

smith went about with a face full of anxiety; Colman's 
hopes in the piece declined at each rehearsal; as to 
his fellow-proprietors, they declared they never enter- 
tained any. All the actors were discontented with 
their parts excepting Ned Shuter, 1 an excellent low 
comedian, and a pretty actress named Miss Walford; 
both of whom the poor author ever afterward held in 
grateful recollection. 

Johnson, Goldsmith's growling monitor and unspar- 
ing castigator in times of heedless levity, stood by 
him at present with that protecting kindness with 
which he ever befriended him in time of need. He 
attended the rehearsals; he furnished the prologue 
according to promise; he pish'd and pshaw'd at any 
doubts and fears on the part of the author, but gave 
him sound counsel, and held him up with a steadfast 
and manly hand. Inspirited by his sympathy, Gold- 
smith plucked up new heart, and arrayed himself for 
the grand trial with unusual care. Ever since his 
elevation into the polite world, he had improved in his 
wardrobe and toilet. Johnson could no longer accuse 
him of being shabby in his appearance ; he rather went 
to the other extreme. On the present occasion there 
is an entry in the books of his tailor, Mr. William 
Filby, of a suit of "Tyrian bloom, satin grain, and 
garter blue silk breeches, £8 2s. 7d." Thus magnifi- 
cently attired, he attended the theatre and watched 
the reception of the play, and the effect of each indi- 
vidual scene, with that vicissitude of feeling incident 
to his mercurial nature. 

Johnson's prologue was solemn in itself, and being 

1 Edward Shuter (1730 (?) -1776) was called, it is asserted 
by Garrick, " the greatest comic genius he had ever known." He 
"created" the character of "Old Hardcastle" in Goldsmith's 
drama She Stoops to Conquer. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 203 

delivered by Brinsley in lugubrious tones suited to the 
ghost in "Hamlet," seemed to throw a portentous 
gloom on the audience. Some of the scenes met with 
great applause, and at such times Goldsmith was 
highly elated; others went off coldly, or there were 
slight tokens of disapprobation, and then his spirits 
would sink. The fourth act saved the piece; for 
Shuter, who had the main comic character of Croaker, 
was so varied and ludicrous in his execution of the 
scene in which he reads an incendiary letter, that he 
drew down thunders of applause. On his coming be- 
hind the scenes, Goldsmith greeted him with an over- 
flowing heart, declaring that he exceeded his own idea 
of the character, and made it almost as new to him as 
to any of the audience. 

On the whole, however, both the author and his 
friends were disappointed at the reception of the piece, 
and considered it a failure. Poor Goldsmith left the 
theatre w^ith his towering hopes completely cut down. 
He endeavored to hide his mortification, and even to 
assume an air of unconcern while among his associates; 
but the moment he was alone with Dr. Johnson, in 
whose rough but magnanimous nature he reposed un- 
limited confidence, he threw off all restraint and gave 
way to an almost childlike burst of grief. Johnson, 
who had shown no want of sympathy at the proper 
time, saw nothing in the partial disappointment of 
over-rated expectations to warrant such ungoverned 
emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he termed 
a silly affectation, saying that "no man should be 
expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity." 

When Goldsmith had recovered from the blow, he, 
with his usual unreserve, made his past distress a sub- 
ject of amusement to his friends. Dining one day, 



204 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

in company with Dr. Johnson, at the chaplain's table 
at St. James's Palace, he entertained the company 
with a particular and comic account of all his feelings 
on the night of representation, and his despair when 
the piece was hissed. How he went, he said, to the 
Literary Club; chatted gayly, as if nothing had gone 
amiss ; and, to give a greater idea of his unconcern, 
sang his favorite song about an old woman tossed in 
a blanket seventeen times as high as the moon. "All 
this while," added he, "I was suffering horrid tor- 
tures, and, had I put a bit in my mouth, I verily 
believe it would have strangled me on the spot, I was 
so excessively ill; but I made more noise than usual 
to cover all that; so they never perceived my not eat- 
ing, nor suspected the anguish of my heart; but when 
all were gone except Johnson here, I burst out a-cry- 
ing, and even swore that I would never write again." 

Dr. Johnson sat in amaze at the odd frankness and 
childlike self -accusation of poor Goldsmith. When 
the latter had come to a pause, "All this, Doctor," 
said he, dryly, "I thought had been a secret between 
you and me, and I am sure I would not have said any- 
thing about it for the world." But Goldsmith had no 
secrets : his follies, his weaknesses, his errors were all 
thrown to the surface ; his heart was really too guile- 
less and innocent to seek mystery and concealment. 
It is too often the false, designing man that is guarded 
in his conduct and never offends proprieties. 

It is singular, however, that Goldsmith, who thus 
in conversation could keep nothing to himself, should 
be the author of a maxim which would inculcate the 
most thorough dissimulation. "Men of the world," 
says he in one of the papers of " The Bee, ' ' : " maintain 
1 No. iii. Prior ed. i. 51. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 205 

that the true end of speech is not so much to express 
our wants as to conceal them." How often is this 
quoted as one of the subtle remarks of the fine-witted 
Talleyrand! 1 

"The Good-Natured Man" was performed for ten 
nights in succession; the third, sixth, and ninth nights 
were for the author's benefit; the fifth night it was 
commanded by their Majesties ; after this it was played 
occasionally, but rarely, having always pleased more 
in the closet than on the stage. 

As to Kelly's comedy, Johnson pronounced it en- 
tirely devoid of character, and it has long since passed 
into oblivion. Yet it is an instance how an inferior 
production, by dint of puffing and trumpeting, may 
be kept up for a time on the surface of popular opin- 
ion, or rather of popular talk. What had been done 
for "False Delicacy" on the stage was continued by 
the press. The booksellers vied with the manager in 
launching it upon the town. They announced that 
the first impression of three thousand copies was ex- 
hausted before two o'clock on the day of publication ; 
four editions, amounting to ten thousand copies, were 
sold in the course of the season ; a public breakfast 
was given to Kelly at the Chapter Coffee-House, and 
a piece of plate presented to him by the publishers. 
The comparative merits of the two plays were contin- 
ually subjects of discussion in green-rooms, coffee- 
houses, and other places where theatrical questions 
were discussed. 

Goldsmith's old enemy, Kenrick, that "viper of the 
press," endeavored on this, as on many other occa- 

1 A French statesman (1754-1838), who succeeded in retain- 
ing his influence and power under several different forms of gov- 
ernment. 



206 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

sions, to detract from his well-earned fame; the poet 
was excessively sensitive to these attacks, and had not 
the art and self-command to conceal his feelings. 

Some scribblers on the other side insinuated that 
Kelly had seen the manuscript of Goldsmith's play, 
while in the hands of Garrick or elsewhere, and had 
borrowed some of the situations and sentiments. Some 
of the wags of the day took a mischievous pleasure in 
stirring up a feud between the two authors. Gold- 
smith became nettled, though he could scarcely be 
deemed jealous of one so far his inferior. He spoke 
disparagingly, though no doubt sincerely, of Kelly's 
play : the latter retorted. Still, when they met one 
day behind the scenes of Covent Garden, Goldsmith, 
with his customary urbanity, congratulated Kelly on 
his success. "If I thought you sincere, Mr. Gold- 
smith," replied the other, abruptly, "I should thank 
you." Goldsmith was not a man to harbor spleen or 
ill-will, and soon laughed at this unworthy rivalship; 
but the jealousy and envy awakened in Kelly's mind 
long continued. He is even accused of having given 
vent to his hostility by anonymous attacks in the news- 
papers, the basest resource of dastardly and malig- 
nant spirits; but of this there is no positive proof. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Burning the Candle at Both Ends. — Fine Apartments. — Fine 
Furniture. — Fine Clothes. — Fine Acquaintances. — Shoe- 
maker's Holiday and Jolly-Pigeon Associates. — Peter Barlow, 
Glover, and the Hampstead Hoax. — Poor Friends among 
Great Acquaintances. 

The profits resulting from "The Good-Natured 
Man " were beyond any that Goldsmith had yet derived 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 801 

from his works. He netted about four hundred poi 
from the theatre, and one hundred pounds from his 
publisher. 

Five hundred pounds! and all at one miraculous 
draught! It appeared to him wealth inexhausti 
It at once opened his heart and hand, and led him 
into all kinds oi extravagance. The first symptom was 
ten guineas sent to Shuter for a be t for his 

benefit, when "The Good-Xatured Man'" was to be 
performed. The next was an entire change in 
domicile. The shabby lodgings with Jeffs, th- 
in which he had :.- >n's serin:, 
were now exchanged for chambers more becoming a 
man of his ample fortune. The apartments consisted 
of three rooms on the second floor of No* 2 L: 
Court. Middle Temple, on the right hand as 
staircase, and overlooked the umbrageous walks of 
the Temple garden. The lease he purchased for i-400, 
and then went imp to furnish his rooms with mahogany 
sofa- >g, and bookcases; with curtains, mir- 
rors, and Wilton carpets. His awkward little person 
was also furnished out in a style befitting his apart- 
ment; for, in addition to his suit of "Tyrian bloom, 

d grain," we find another charged about this time, 
in the books of Mr. Filby, in no It— _ )rgeous terms, 
being "lined with silk and furnished with gold but- 
tons. " Thus lodged and thus arrayed, he invited the 

ba of his most aristocratic acquaintances, and no 
longer quailed beneath the courtly eye of Beauclerc. 
He gave dinners to Johnson. Reynolds, Percy, Bick- 
erstaft, and other friends of note; and supper parties 
to young folks of both sexes. These last were pre- 

i cards, at which th 
more laughter than skill, and in winch the .-port 



208 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

to cheat each other ; or by romping games of forfeits 
and blind-man's-buff, at which he enacted the lord of 
misrule. Blackstone, 1 whose chambers were imme- 
diately below, and who was studiously occupied on his 
"Commentaries," used to complain of the racket made 
overhead by his revelling neighbor. 

Sometimes Goldsmith would make up a rural party, 
composed of four or five of his "Jolly-Pigeon " friends, 
to enjoy what he humorously called a "shoemaker's 
holiday." These would assemble at his chambers in 
the morning, to partake of a plentiful and rather ex- 
pensive breakfast, the remains of which, with his cus- 
tomary benevolence, he generally gave to some poor 
woman in attendance. The repast ended, the party 
would set out on foot, in high spirits, making exten- 
sive rambles by foot-paths and green lanes to Black- 
heath, Wandsworth, Chelsea, Hampton Court, High- 
gate, or some other pleasant resort, within a few miles 
of London. A simple but gay and heartily relished 
dinner, at a country inn, crowned the excursion. In 
the evening they strolled back to town, all the better 
in health and spirits for a day spent in rural and so- 
cial enjoyment. Occasionally, when extravagantly 
inclined, they adjourned from dinner to drink tea at 
the White Conduit House; and, now and then, con- 
cluded their festive day by supping at the Grecian or 
Temple Exchange Coffee-Houses, or at the Globe 
Tavern, in Fleet Street. The whole expenses of the 
day never exceeded a crown, and were often from 
three and sixpence to four shillings ; for the best part 
of their entertainment, sweet air and rural scenes, ex- 
cellent exercise and joyous conversation, cost nothing. 

1 Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) was the author of 
Commentaries on the Laws of England. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 209 

One of Goldsmith's humble companions, on these 
excursions, was his occasional amanuensis, Peter Bar- 
low, whose quaint peculiarities afforded much amuse- 
ment to the company. Peter was poor but punctilious, 
squaring his expenses according to his means. He 
always wore the same garb; fixed his regular expen- 
diture for dinner at a trifling sum, which, if left to 
himself, he never exceeded, but which he always in- 
sisted on paying. His oddities always made him a 
welcome companion on the "shoemaker's holidays." 
The dinner, on these occasions, generally exceeded 
considerably his tariff: he put down, however, no 
more than his regular sum, and Goldsmith made up 
the difference. 

Another of these hangers-on, for whom, on such 
occasions, he was content to "pay the shot," was his 
countryman Glover, of whom mention has already been 
made as one of the wags and sponges of the Globe 
and Devil taverns, and a prime mimic at the "Wednes- 
day Club. 

This vagabond genius has bequeathed us a whimsi- 
cal story of one of his practical jokes upon Goldsmith, 
in the course of a rural excursion in the vicinity of 
London. They had dined at an inn on Hampstead 
Heights, and were descending the hill, when, in pass- 
ing a cottage, they saw through the open window a 
party at tea. Goldsmith, who was fatigued, cast a 
wistful glance at the cheerful tea-table. "How I 
should like to be of that party! " exclaimed he. "No- 
thing more easy." replied Glover ; "allow me to in- 
troduce you." So saying, he entered the house with 
an air of the most perfect familiarity, though an utter 
stranger, and was followed by the unsuspecting Gold- 
smith, who supposed, of course, that he was a friend 



210 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

of the family. The owner of the house rose on the 
entrance of the strangers. The undaunted Glover 
shook hands with him in the most cordial manner pos- 
sible, fixed his eye on one of the company who had a 
peculiarly good-natured physiognomy, muttered some- 
thing like a recognition, and forthwith launched into 
an amusing story, invented at the moment, of some- 
thing which he pretended had occurred upon the road. 
The host supposed the new-comers were friends of his 
guests ; the guests, that they were friends of the host. 
Glover did not give them time to find out the truth. 
He followed one droll story with another ; brought his 
powers of mimicry into play, and kept the company 
in a roar. Tea was offered and accepted; an hour 
went off in the most sociable manner imaginable, at 
the end of which Glover bowed himself and his com- 
panion out of the house with many facetious last words, 
leaving the host and his company to compare notes, 
and to find out what an impudent intrusion they had 
experienced. 

Nothing could exceed the dismay and vexation of 
Goldsmith when triumphantly told by Glover that it 
was all a hoax, and that he did not know a single soul 
in the house. His first impulse was to return instantly 
and vindicate himself from all participation in the jest ; 
but a few words from his free-and-easy companion 
dissuaded him. "Doctor," said he, coolly, "we are 
unknown ; you quite as much as I ; if you return and 
tell the story, it will be in the newspapers to-morrow; 
nay, upon recollection, I remember in one of their 
offices the face of that squinting fellow who sat in the 
corner as if he was treasuring up my stories for future 
use, and we shall be sure of being exposed; let us 
therefore keep our own counsel." 



OLIVER GOLL SMITH. 

This story was frequently afterward told by Glover, 
with rich dramatic effect, repeating and exaggerating 
the conTersation, and mimicking, in ludicrous s~ 
the embarr surprise, and subsequent indig- 

nation of Goldsmith. 

~ a trite saying that a wheel cannot run in two 
rots, nor a man keep two opposite sets of intimates. 
Goldsmith sometimes found his old friends of the 
" Jolly-Pigeon n order turning up rather awkwardly 
when he was in company with his new aristocratic 
acquaintances. He gave a whimsical account of the 
sudden apparition of one of them at his gay apartments 
in the Temple, who may have been a welcome visitor 
at his squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court. "How 
do you think he served me?" said he to a friend. 
** Why. sir. after staying away two years, he came one 
iiing into my chambers, half drunk, as I was taking 
a glass of wine with Topham Beauclerc and General 
Oglethorpe; 1 and sitting himself down, with most in- 
tolerable assurance inquired after my health and lit- 
erary pursuits, as if we were upon the most friendly 
footing. I was at first so much ashamed of ever hav- 
ing known such a fellow, that I stifled my resentment, 
and drew him into a conversation on such topics as I 
knew he could talk upon; in which, to do him jus- 
tice, he acquitted himself very reputably : when all of 
a sadden, as if recollecting something, he pulled two 
papers out of his pocket, which he presented to me 
with great ceremony, saying. 'Here, my dear friend. 
is a quarter of a pound of tea, and a half pound of 
sugar. I have brought you ; for though it is not in my 
power at present to pay you the two guineas you so 
1 (1696-1785.) The founder of the colony of Georgia. See 



212 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

generously lent me, you, nor any man else, shall ever 
have it to say that I want gratitude/ This," added 
Goldsmith, "was too much. I could no longer keep 
in my feelings, but desired him to turn out of my 
chambers directly; which he very coolly did, taking 
up his tea and sugar; and I never saw him afterwards." 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Reduced again to Book-Building. — Rural Retreat at Shoemaker's 
Paradise. — Death of Henry Goldsmith ; Tributes to his 
Memory in " The Deserted Village." 

The heedless expenses of Goldsmith, as may easily 
be supposed, soon brought him to the end of his " prize- 
money," but when his purse gave out he drew upon 
futurity, obtaining advances from his booskellers and 
loans from his friends in the confident hope of soon 
turning up another trump. The debts which he thus 
thoughtlessly incurred in consequence of a transient 
gleam of prosperity embarrassed him for the rest of 
his life; so that the success of "The Good-Natured 
Man" may be said to have been ruinous to him. 

He was soon obliged to resume his old craft of 
book -building, and set about his "History of Rome," 
undertaken for Davies. 

It was his custom, as we have shown, during the 
summer time, when pressed by a multiplicity of liter- 
ary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment of some par- 
ticular task, to take country lodgings a few miles from 
town, generally on the Harrow or Edgware roads, 
and bury himself there for weeks and months together. 
Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his 
room, at other times he would stroll out along the lanes 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 213 

and hedgerows, and taking out paper and pencil, note 
down thoughts to be expanded and connected at home. 
His summer retreat for the present year, 1768, was a 
little cottage with a garden, pleasantly situated about 
eight miles from town on the Edgware road. He 
took it in conjunction with a Mr. Edmund Botts, a 
barrister and man of letters, his neighbor in the Tem- 
ple, having rooms immediately opposite him on the 
same floor. They had become cordial intimates, and 
Botts was one of those with whom Goldsmith now and 
then took the friendly but pernicious liberty of bor- 
rowing. 

The cottage which they had hired belonged to a rich 
shoemaker of Piccadilly, who had embellished his 
little domain of half an acre with statues, and jets, 
and all the decorations of landscape gardening; in 
consequence of which Goldsmith gave it the name of 
The Shoemaker's Paradise. As his fellow-occupant, 
Mr. Botts, drove a gig, he sometimes, in an interval 
of literary labor, accompanied him to town, partook 
of a social dinner there, and returned with him in the 
evening. On one occasion, when they had probably 
lingered too long at the table, they came near break- 
ing their necks on their way homeward by driving 
against a post on the sidewalk, while Botts was prov- 
ing by the force of legal eloquence that they were in 
the very middle of the broad Edgware road. 

In the course of this summer, Goldsmith's career of 
gayety was suddenly brought to a pause by intelligence 
of the death of his brother Henry, then but forty-five 
years of age. He had led a quiet and blameless life 
amid the scenes of his vouth, fulfilling: the duties of 
village pastor with unaffected piety; conducting the 
school at Lissoy with a degree of industry and ability 



214 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

that gave it celebrity, and acquitting himself in all 
the duties of life with undeviating rectitude and the 
mildest benevolence. How truly Goldsmith loved and 
venerated him is evident in all his letters and through- 
out his works ; in which his brother continually forms 
his model for an exemplification of all the most endear- 
ing of the Christian virtues; yet his affection at his 
death was embittered by the fear that he died with 
some doubt upon his mind of the warmth of his affec- 
tion. Goldsmith had been urged by his friends in 
Ireland, since his elevation in the world, to use his 
influence with the great, which they supposed to be 
all-powerful, in favor of Henry, to obtain for him 
church preferment. He did exert himself as far as 
his diffident nature would permit, but without success ; 
we have seen that, in the case of the Earl of North- 
umberland, when, as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, that 
nobleman proffered him his patronage, he asked no- 
thing for himself, but only spoke on behalf of his 
brother. Still some of his friends, ignorant of what 
he had done and of how little he was able to do, accused 
him of negligence. It is not likely, however, that his 
amiable and estimable brother joined in the accusa- 
tion. 

To the tender and melancholy recollections of his 
early days awakened by the death of this loved com- 
panion of his childhood, we may attribute some of 
the most heartfelt passages in his "Deserted Village." 
Much of that poem, we are told, was composed this 
summer, in the course of solitary strolls about the green 
lanes and beautifully rural scenes of the neighborhood ; 
and thus much of the softness and sweetness of Eng- 
lish landscape became blended with the ruder features 
of Lissoy. It was in these lonely and subdued mo- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 215 

ments, when tender regret was half mingled with self- 
upbraidiDg, that he poured forth that homage of the 
heart rendered as it were at the grave of his brother. 
The picture of the village pastor in this poem, which 
we have already hinted was taken in part from the 
character of his father, embodied likewise the recol- 
lections of his brother Henry; for the natures of the 
father and son seem to have been identical. In the 
following lines, however, Goldsmith evidently con- 
trasted the quiet settled life of his brother, passed at 
home in the benevolent exercise of the Christian duties, 
with his own restless, vagrant career : — 

■ Remote from towns he ran his godly race. 
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place." 

To us the whole character seems traced as it were in 
an expiatory spirit; as if, conscious of his own wan- 
dering restlessness, he sought to humble himself at 
the shrine of excellence which he had not been able 
to practise : — 

" At church with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorn'd the venerable place ; 
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 
Even children follow'd, with endearing wile, 
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile : 
His ready smile a parent's warmth express' d, 
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd ; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given ; 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 

And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." 



216 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Dinner at Bickerstaff's. — Hiffernan and his Impecuniosity. 
— Kenrick's Epigram. — Johnson's Consolation. — Goldsmith's 
Toilet. — The Bloom-Colored Coat. — New Acquaintances ; 
the Hornecks. — A Touch of Poetry and Passion. — The 
Jessamy Bride. 

In October Goldsmith returned to town and resumed 
his usual haunts. We hear of him at a dinner given 
by his countryman Isaac Bickerstaff, author of "Love 
in a Village," "Lionel and Clarissa," and other suc- 
cessful dramatic pieces. The dinner was to be fol- 
lowed by the reading by Bickerstaff of a new play. 
Among the guests was one Paul Hiffernan, likewise 
an Irishman; somewhat idle and intemperate; who 
lived nobody knew how nor where, sponging whenever 
he had a chance, and often of course upon Goldsmith, 
who was ever the vagabond's friend, or rather victim. 
Hiffernan was something of a physician, and elevated 
the emptiness of his purse into the dignity of a disease, 
which he termed impecuniosity, and against which he 
claimed a right to call for relief from the healthier 
purses of his friends. He was a scribbler for the 
newspapers, and latterly a dramatic critic, which had 
probably gained him an invitation to the dinner and 
reading. The wine and wassail, however, befogged 
his senses. Scarce had the author got into the second 
act of his play, when Hiffernan began to nod, and 
at length snored outright. Bickerstaff was embar- 
rassed, but continued to read in a more elevated tone. 
The louder he read, the louder Hiffernan snored ; 
until the author came to a pause. "Never mind the 
brute, Bick, but go on, " cried Goldsmith. " He would 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 217 

have served Homer just so if he were here and reading 
his own works." 

Kenrick. Goldsmith's old enemy, travestied this 
anecdote in the following lines, pretending that the 
poet had compared his countryman Bickerstafi: to 
Homer : — 

"What are your Bretons, Romans, Grecians, 
Compared with thorough-bred Milesians ! 

rp into Griffin's shop, he '11 tell ye 
Of Goldsmith, Bickerstaff, and Kelly . . . 
And, take one Irish evidence for t'other, 
Ev'n Homer's self is but their foster-brother." 

Johnson was a rough consoler to a man when win- 
cing under an attack of this kind. "Never mind. 
sir." said he to Goldsmith, when he saw that he felt 
the sting. '" A man whose business it is to be talked 
of is much helped by being attacked. Fame, sir. is 
a shuttlecock; if it be struck only at one end of the 
room, it will soon fall to the ground; to keep it up, 
it must be struck at both ends." 

Bickerstaff. at the time of which we are speaking, 
was in high vogue, the associate of the first wits of the 
day; a few years afterwards he was obliged to fly the 
country to escape the punishment of an infamous 
crime. Johnson expressed great astonishment at hear- 
ing the offence for which he had fled. "Why, sir." 
said Thrale, 1 "he had long been a suspected man."' 
Perhaps there was a knowing look on the part of the 
eminent brewer, which provoked a somewhat contempt- 
uous reply. "By those who look close to the ground." 
said Johnsor. vill sometimes be seen ; I hope I 

see things from a greater distance." 

1 Thrale was a brewer. His wife was very near to Dr. John- 
son, but after Thrale's death she married an Italian named 
. and became completely estranged from the great man. 



218 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

We have already noticed the improvement, or rather 
the increased expense, of Goldsmith's wardrobe since 
his elevation into polite society. "He was fond," 
says one of his contemporaries, " of exhibiting his mus- 
cular little person in the gayest apparel of the day, to 
which was added a bag-wig and sword." Thus ar- 
rayed, he used to figure about in the sunshine in the 
Temple Gardens, much to his own satisfaction, but to 
the amusement of his acquaintances. 

Boswell, in his memoirs, has rendered one of his 
suits forever famous. That worthy, on the 16th of 
October in this same year, gave a dinner to Johnson, 
Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, Murphy, Bickerstaff, 
and Davies. Goldsmith was generally apt to bustle 
in at the last moment, when the guests were taking 
their seats at table ; but on this occasion he was un- 
usually early. While waiting for some lingerers to 
arrive, "he strutted about," says Boswell, " bragging 
of his dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for 
his mind was undoubtedly prone to such impressions. 
'Come, come,' said Garrick, 'talk no more of that. 
You are perhaps the worst — eh, eh?' Goldsmith was 
eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick 
went on, laughing ironically. 'Nay, you will always 
look like a gentleman ; but I am talking of your being 
well or ill dressed. ' ' Well, let me tell you, ' said Gold- 
smith, 'when the tailor brought home my bloom-col- 
ored coat, he said, " Sir, I have a favor to beg of you ; 
when anybody asks you who made your clothes, be 
pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in 
Water Lane."' 'Why, sir,' cried Johnson, 'that 
was because he knew the strange color would attract 
crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, 
and see how well he could make a coat of so absurd 
a color.' " 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 219 

But though Goldsmith might permit this raillery on 
the part of his friends, he was quick to resent any 
personalities of the kind from strangers. As he was 
one day walking the Strand in grand array with bag- 
wig and sword, he excited the merriment of two cox- 
combs, one of whom called to the other to "look at 
that fly with a long pin stuck through it." Stung to 
the quick, Goldsmith's first retort was to caution the 
passers-by to be on their guard against "that brace of 
disguised pickpockets;" his next was to step into the 
middle of the street, where there was room for action, 
half draw his sword, and beckon the joker, who was 
armed in like manner, to follow him. This was liter- 
ally a war of wit which the other had not anticipated. 
He had no inclination to push the joke to such an ex- 
treme, but abandoning the ground, sneaked off with 
his brother wag amid the hootings of the spectators. 

This proneness to finery in dress, however, which 
Bos well and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, 
who did not understand the secret plies 2 of his char- 
acter, attributed to vanity, arose, we are convinced, 
from a widely different motive. It was from a pain- 
ful idea of his own personal defects, which had been 
cruelly stamped upon his mind in his boyhood, by the 
sneers and jeers of his playmates, and had been 
grounded deeper into it by rude speeches made to him 
in every step of his struggling career, until it had be- 
come a constant cause of awkwardness and embarrass- 
ment. This he had experienced the more sensibly 
since his reputation had elevated him into polite soci- 
ety; and he was constantly endeavoring by the aid of 
dress to acquire that personal acceptability, if we may 
use the phrase, which nature had denied him. If ever 
he betrayed a little self-complacency on first turning 
1 Plies= folds. 



220 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

out in a new suit, it may, perhaps, have been because 
he felt as if he had achieved a triumph over his ugliness* 
There were circumstances too, about the time of 
which we are treating, which may have rendered Gold- 
smith more than usually attentive to his personal ap- 
pearance. He had recently made the acquaintance 
of a most agreeable family from Devonshire, which 
he met at the house of his friend, Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds. It consisted of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Cap- 
tain Kane Horneck; two daughters, seventeen and 
nineteen years of age ; and an only son, Charles, the 
Captain in Lace, as his sisters playfully and some- 
what proudly called him, he having lately entered the 
Guards. The daughters are described as uncommonly 
beautiful, intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. Cath- 
arine, the eldest, went among her friends by the name 
of Little Comedy, indicative, very probably, of her 
disposition. She was engaged to William Henry 
Bunbury, second son of a Suffolk baronet. The hand 
and heart of her sister Mary were yet unengaged, 
although she bore the by-name among her friends of 
the Jessamy Bride. This family was prepared, by 
their intimacy with Reynolds and his sister, to appre- 
ciate the merits of Goldsmith. The poet had always 
been a chosen friend of the eminent painter; and 
Miss Reynolds, 1 as we have shown, ever since she had 
heard his poem of "The Traveller" read aloud, had 
ceased to consider him ugly. The Hornecks were 
equally capable of forgetting his person in admiring 
his works. On becoming acquainted with him, too, 
they were delighted with his guileless simplicity, his 

1 Frances, the youngest sister of Sir Joshua. She was for 
many years his companion and housekeeper, as Reynolds never 
married. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 221 

buoyant good-nature, and his innate benevolence ; and 
an enduring intimacy soon sprang up between them. 
For once poor Goldsmith had met with polite society 
with which he was perfectly at home, and by which he 
was fully appreciated ; for once he had met with lovely 
women to whom his ugly features were not repulsive. 
A proof of the easy and playful terms on which he was 
with them, remains in a whimsical epistle in verse, of 
which the following was the occasion. A dinner was 
to be given to their family by a Dr. Baker, a friend of 
their mother's, at which Reynolds and Angelica Kauff- 
man 1 were to be present. The young ladies were eager 
to have Goldsmith of the party, and their intimacy 
with Dr. Baker allowing them to take the liberty, 
they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at the last 
moment. It came too late, and drew from him the 
following reply; on the top of which was scrawled, 
"This is a poem! This is a copy of verses! " 

" Your mandate I got, Little Comedy 1 s face, 

You may all go to pot ; And the Captain in Lace, — ; 

Had your senses been right, Tell each other to rue 

You'd have sent before night : Your Devonshire crew, 

So tell Horneck and Nesbitt, For sending so late 

And Baker and his bit, To one of my state. 

And Kauffman beside, But 't is Reynolds's way 

And the Jessamy Bride, From wisdom to stay, 

With the rest of the crew, And Angelica's whim 

The Reynoldses too, To befrolic like him ; 

But alas ! your good worships, how could they be wiser, 
When both have been spoil'd in to-day's ' Advertiser ' ? " 2 

1 (1741-1807.). A Swiss landscape and portrait painter, who 
resided in London from 1765 to 1781. She is said to have been 
the only woman with whom Sir Joshua Reynolds was ever in 
love. 

2 The following lines had appeared in that day's " Advertiser," 
on the portrait of Sir Joshua by Angelica Kauffman: — 



222 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

It has been intimated that the intimacy of poor Gold- 
smith with the Miss Hornecks, which began in so 
sprightly a vein, gradually assumed something of a 
more tender nature, and that he was not insensible to 
the fascinations of the younger sister. This may ac- 
count for some of the phenomena which about this 
time appeared in his wardrobe and toilet. During 
the first year of his acquaintance with these lovely 
girls, the tell-tale book of his tailor, Mr. William 
Filby, displays entries of four or five full suits, be- 
sides separate articles of dress. Among the items we 
find a green half-trimmed frock and breeches, lined 
with silk; a queen's-blue dress suit; a half -dress suit 
of ratteen, lined with satin ; a pair of silk stocking- 
breeches, and another pair of a bloom -color. Alas ! 
poor Goldsmith ! how much of this silken finery was 
dictated, not by vanity, but humble consciousness of 
thy defects ; how much of it was to atone for the un- 
couthness of thy person, and to win favor in the eyes 
of the Jessamy Bride ! 

" While fair Angelica, with matchless grace, 
Paints Conway's l . burly form and Stanhope's 2 face, 
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay, 
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away. 
But when the likeness she hath done for thee, 
O Reynolds ! with astonishment we see, 
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own, 
Such strength, such harmony, excelled by none, 
And thou art rivalled by thyself alone." 

1 Henry Seymour Conway (1721-1795), cousin to Horace Walpole, was secre- 
tary of state under the Marquis of Rockingham (1765-176G); he was a warm friend 
of the American colonies. 

2 Lord Chesterfield. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 223 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Goldsmith in the Temple. — Judge Day and Grattan. — Labor 
and Dissipation. — Publication of the Roman History. — 
Opinions of it. — " History of Animated Nature." — Temple 
Rookery. — Anecdotes of a Spider. 

In the winter of 1768-69 Goldsmith occupied him- 
self at his quarters in the Temple, slowly "building 
up " his Roman History. We have pleasant views of 
him in this learned and half -cloistered retreat of wits 
and lawyers and legal students, in the reminiscences 
of Judge Day of the Irish Bench, who, in his advanced 
age, delighted to recall the days of his youth, when 
he was a Templar, and to speak of the kindness 
with which he and his fellow-student, Grattan, 1 were 
treated by the poet. "I was just arrived from col- 
lege," said he, "full freighted with academic glean- 
ings, and our author did not disdain to receive from 
me some opinions and hints towards his Greek and 
Roman histories. Being then a young man, I felt 
much flattered by the notice of so celebrated a person. 
He took great delight in the conversation of Grattan, 
whose brilliancy in the morning of life furnished full 
earnest of the unrivalled splendor which awaited his 
meridian; and finding us dwelling together in Essex 
Court, near himself, where he frequently visited my 
immortal friend, his warm heart became naturally 
prepossessed towards the associate of one whom he 
so much admired." 

1 Henry Grattan (1746-1820) was born in Dublin and \v;is 
graduated from Dublin University, — two points in which Gold- 
smith would have a kindred feeling for him. He became a great 
statesman and orator. 



224 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The judge goes on, in his reminiscences, to give a 
picture of Goldsmith's social habits, similar in style 
to those already furnished. He frequented much the 
Grecian Coffee -House, then the favorite resort of the 
Irish and Lancashire Templars. He delighted in 
collecting his friends around him at evening parties 
at his chambers, where he entertained them with a 
cordial and unostentatious hospitality. "Occasion- 
ally, ' ' adds the Judge, " he amused them with his flute, 
or with whist, neither of which he played well, partic- 
ularly the latter, but, on losing his money, he never 
lost his temper. In a run of bad luck and worse 
play, he would fling his cards upon the floor and ex- 
claim, ' Byefore George, I ought forever to renounce 
thee, fickle, faithless fortune.' " 

The Judge was aware, at the time, that all the 
learned labor of poor Goldsmith upon his Roman His- 
tory was mere hack-work to recruit his exhausted 
finances. "His purse replenished," adds he, "by 
labors of this kind, the season of relaxation and pleas- 
ure took its turn, in attending the theatres, Ranelagh, 1 
Vauxhall, 2 and other scenes of gayety and amusement. 

1 Ranelagh (ran'-e-la) Gardens at this time were famous for 
their concerts and for wild and extravagant masquerades. They 
were closed in 1805. See the description, p. 298. 

2 Vauxhall Gardens in 1760 : " In the midst of the garden 
is a superb orchestra, containing a fine organ, with a band of 
music and some of the best voices. In most of the boxes are 
pictures painted from designs of Hayman " and Hogarth " on 
subjects of humor well adapted to the place. The trees are 
scattered with pleasing confusion ; there are several noble vistas 
through very tali trees, the spaces between being filled up with 
neat hedges ; and on the inside are planted flowers and sweet- 
smelling shrubs." Quoted from Dodsley's Environs of London 
in Goldsmith's Miscellaneous Works, Prior ed. ii. 297. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 225 

Whenever his funds were dissipated, — and they fled 
more rapidly from being the dupe of many artful 
persons, male and female, who practised upon his 
benevolence, — he returned to his literary labors, and 
shut himself up from society to provide fresh matter 
for his bookseller, and fresh supplies for himself." 

How completely had the young student discerned 
the characteristics of poor genial, generous, drudging, 
holiday-loving Goldsmith, — toiling, that he might 
play ; earning his bread by the sweat of his brains, and 
then throwing it out of the window. 

The Roman History was published in the middle of 
May, in two volumes of five hundred pages each. It 
was brought out without parade or pretension, and 
was announced as for the use of schools and colleges ; 
but, though a work written for bread, not fame, such 
is its ease, perspicuity, good sense, and the delightful 
simplicity of its style, that it was well received by the 
critics, commanded a prompt and extensive sale, and 
has ever since remained in the hands of young and old . 

Johnson, who, as we have before remarked, rarely 
praised or dispraised things by halves, broke forth in 
a warm eulogy of the author and the work, in a con- 
versation with Boswell, to the great astonishment of 
the latter. " Whether we take Goldsmith," said he, 
"as a poet, as a comic writer, or as an historian, he 
stands in the first class." Boswell: "An historian! 
My dear sir, you surely will not rank his compilation 
of the Roman History with the works of other histo- 
rians of this age." Johnson: "Why, who are be- 
fore him?" Boswell: "Hume 1 — Robertson 2 — Lord 

1 See note, p. 120. His History of England was issued be- 
tween 1754 and 1762. 

2 William Robertson (1721-1793), a Scotch historian, became 



226 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Lyttelton." 1 Johnson (his antipathy against the 
Scotch beginning to rise) : " I have not read Hume ; 
but doubtless Goldsmith's History is better than the 
verbiage of Robertson or the foppery of Dalrymple." 2 
Boswell: "Will you not admit the superiority of 
Robertson, in whose history we find such penetration, 
such painting? " Johnson: "Sir, you must consider 
how that penetration and that painting are employed. 
It is not history, it is imagination. He who describes 
what he never saw, draws from fancy. Robertson 
paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history 
piece; he imagines an heroic countenance. You must 
look upon Robertson's work as romance, and try it 
by that standard. History it is not. Besides, sir, it 
is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book 
as much as his book will hold. Goldsmith has done 
this in his History. Now Robertson might have put 
twice as much in his book. Robertson is like a man 
who has packed gold in wool; the wool takes up more 
room than the gold. No, sir, I always thought Rob- 
ertson would be crushed with his own weight — would 
be buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells 
you shortly all you want to know; Robertson detains 
you a great deal too long. No man will read Rob- 
ertson's cumbrous detail a second time; but Gold- 
smith's plain narrative will please again and again. 

historiographer-royal in 1764. His History of Scotland is pro- 
bably referred to. He was " a man of less original mental force 
than Hume, but nearly as good a writer, and a more careful 
historian " (Saintsbury). 

1 (1709-1773.) At this time his History of Henry II. was 
appearing. 

2 Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes (1726-1792), was a cele- 
brated Scotch writer. His Memorials and Letters relating to the 
History of Britain in the reign of Charles I. appeared in 1766. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 227 

I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a col- 
lege said to one of his pupils, 4 Read over your com- 
positions, and whenever you meet with a passage which 
you think is particularly fine, strike it out! ' Gold- 
smith's abridgment is better than that of Lucius Flo- 
ras * or Eutropius ; 2 and I will venture to say, that, 
if you compare him with Vertot 3 in the same places 
of the Roman History, you will find that he excels 
Vertot. Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of say- 
ing everything he has to say in a pleasing manner. 
He is now writing a Natural History, and will make 
it as entertaining as a Persian tale." 

The Natural History to which Johnson alluded was 
the " History of Animated Nature," which Goldsmith 
commenced in 1769, under an engagement with Griffin, 
the bookseller, to complete it as soon as possible in 
eight volumes, each containing upwards of four hun- 
dred pages, in pica ; a hundred guineas to be paid to 
the author on the delivery of each volume in manu- 
script. 

He was induced to engage in this work by the ur- 
gent solicitations of the booksellers, who had been 
struck by the sterling merits and captivating style of 
an introduction which he wrote to Brookes's 4 "Nat- 
ural History." It was Goldsmith's intention origi- 

1 Florus, who lived in the second century A. D., wrote an 
abridged Roman History. 

2 Eutropius, who lived in the fourth century A. D., wrote a 
history of Rome from the founding of the city to the death of 
Jovian, 3G4. 

8 Vertot d'Aubceuf (var-to' do-bef) (1655-1735), a French 
historian, was the author of a History of the Revolutions of the Ro- 
man Republic. 

4 Richard Brookes, a physician and traveller, published A 
System of Natural History in 17C3. 



228 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

nally to make a translation of Pliny, 1 with a popular 
commentary; but the appearance of Buffon's 2 work 
induced him to change his plan, and make use of that 
author for a guide and model. 

Cumberland, 3 speaking of this work, observes: 
" Distress drove Goldsmith upon undertakings neither 
congenial with his studies nor worthy of his talents. 
I remember him when, in his chambers in the Temple, 
he showed me the beginning of his 'Animated Na- 
ture; ' it was with a sigh, such as genius draws when 
hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge for 
bread, and talk of birds, and beasts, and creeping 
things, which Pidock's 4 showman would have done as 
well. Poor fellow, he hardly knows an ass from a 
mule, nor a turkey from a goose, but when he sees it 
on the table." 

Others of Goldsmith's friends entertained similar 
ideas with respect to his fitness for the task, and they 
were apt now and then to banter him on the subject, 
and to amuse themselves with his easy credulity. The 
custom among the natives of Otaheite 5 of eating dogs 

1 Pliny the Elder, Caius Plinius Secundus (23-79), a Roman 
naturalist, wrote a long and elaborate Natural History which 
was considered an authority for several centuries. 

2 Buffon (1707-1788), a French naturalist, at this time was 
issuing his comprehensive Natural History. The seventeenth 
volume appeared in 1767. 

8 Probably Richard Cumberland (1732-1811), the English 
dramatist, whom Goldsmith gives a place in his Retaliation : — 

" Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts, 
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts; 
A flattering painter, who made it his care 
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are," etc. 

4 The piddock is a species of shell-fish found in British waters. 
Here, possibly, personified to belittle the work of Goldsmith. 
6 Tahiti, one of the Society Islands. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 229 

being once mentioned in company, Goldsmith ob- 
served that a similar custom prevailed in China; that 
a dog-butcher is as common there as any other butcher ; 
and that, when he walks abroad, all the dogs fall on 
him. Johnson: "That is not owing to his killing 
dogs; sir, I remember a butcher at Lichfield, whom 
a dog that was in the house where I lived always at- 
tacked. It is the smell of carnage which provokes 
this, let the animals he has killed be what they may." 
Goldsmith: "Yes, there is a general abhorrence in 
animals at the signs of massacre. If you put a tub 
full of blood into a stable, the horses are likely to go 
mad." Johnson: "I doubt that." Goldsmith: "Nay, 
sir, it is a fact well authenticated." Thrale: "You 
had better prove it before you put it into your book 
on Natural History. You may do it in my stable if 
you will." Johnson: "Nay, sir, I would not have 
him prove it. If he is content to take his informa- 
tion from others, he may get through his book with 
little trouble, and without much endangering his repu- 
tation. But if he makes experiments for so compre- 
hensive a book as his, there would be no end to them ; 
his erroneous assertions would fall then upon himself ; 
and he might be blamed for not having made experi- 
ments as to every particular." 

Johnson's original prediction, however, with respect 
to this work, that Goldsmith would make it as enter- 
taining as a Persian tale, was verified; and though 
much of it was borrowed from Buffon, and but little 
of it written from his own observation, — though it 
was by no means profound, and was chargeable with 
many errors, yet the charms of his style and the play 
of his happy disposition throughout have continued 
to render it far more popular and readable than many 



230 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

works on the subject of much greater scope and sci- 
ence. Cumberland was mistaken, however, in his 
notion of Goldsmith's ignorance and lack of observa- 
tion as to the characteristics of animals. On the con- 
trary, he was a minute and shrewd observer of them ; 
but he observed them with the eye of a poet and 
moralist as well as a naturalist. We quote two pas- 
sages from his works illustrative of this fact, and we 
do so the more readily because they are in a manner a 
part of his history, and give us another peep into his 
private life in the Temple, — of his mode of occupy- 
ing himself in his lonely and apparently idle moments, 
and of another class of acquaintances which he made 
there. 

Speaking in his "Animated Nature" of the habi- 
tudes of rooks, "I have often amused myself," says 
he, "with observing their plans of policy from my 
window in the Temple, that looks upon a grove, where 
they have made a colony in the midst of a city. At 
the commencement of spring the rookery, which dur- 
ing the continuance of winter seemed to have been 
deserted, or only guarded by about five or six, like 
old soldiers in a garrison, now begins to be once more 
frequented, and in a short time all the bustle and hurry 
of business will be fairly commenced." 

The other passage, which we take the liberty to 
quote at some length, is from an admirable paper in 
"The Bee," and relates to the house spider. 

"Of all the solitary insects I have ever remarked, 
the spider is the most sagacious, and its motions to 
me, who have attentively considered them, seem almost 
to exceed belief. ... I perceived, about four years 
ago, a large spider in one corner of my room making 
its web ; and, though the maid frequently levelled her 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 231 

broom against the labors of the little animal, I had 
the good fortune then to prevent its destruction, and 
I may say it more than paid me by the entertainment 
it afforded. 

"In three days the web was, with incredible dili- 
gence, completed ; nor could I avoid thinking that the 
insect seemed to exult in its new abode. It frequently 
traversed it round, examined the strength of every 
part of it, retired into its hole, and came out very fre- 
quently. The first enemy, however, it had to encounter 
was another and a much larger spider, which, having 
no web of its own, and having probably exhausted all 
its stock in former labors of this kind, came to invade 
the property of its neighbor. Soon, then, a terrible 
encounter ensued, in which the invader seemed to have 
the victory, and the laborious spider was obliged to 
take refuge in its hole. Upon this I perceived the 
victor using every art to draw the enemy from its 
stronghold. He seemed to go off, but quickly re- 
turned ; and when he found all arts in vain, began to 
demolish the new web without mercy. This brought 
on another battle, and, contrary to my expectations, 
the laborious spider became conqueror, and fairly 
killed his antagonist. 

"Now, then, in peaceable possession of what was 
justly its own, it waited three days with the utmost 
impatience, repairing the breaches of its web, and tak- 
ing no sustenance that I could perceive. At last, 
however, a large blue fly fell into the snare, and strug- 
gled hard to get loose. The spider gave it leave to 
entangle itself as much as possible, but it seemed to 
be too strong for the cobweb. I must own I was 
greatly surprised when I saw the spider immediately 
sally out, and in less than a minute weave a new net 



232 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

round its captive, by which the motion of its wings 
was stopped; and, when it was fairly hampered in 
this manner, it was seized and dragged into the hole. 

u In this manner it lived, in a precarious state; and 
Nature seemed to have fitted it for such a life, for 
upon a single fly it subsisted for more than a week. I 
once put a wasp into the net; but when the spider 
came out in order to seize it as usual, upon perceiving 
what kind of an enemy it had to deal with, it instantly 
broke all the bands that held it fast, and contributed 
all that lay in its power to disengage so formidable an 
antagonist. When the wasp was set at liberty, I ex- 
pected the spider would have set about repairing the 
breaches that were made in its net ; but those, it seems, 
were irreparable; wherefore the cobweb was now en- 
tirely forsaken, and a new one begun, which was com- 
pleted in the usual time. 

"I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a 
single spider could furnish; wherefore I destroyed 
this, and the insect set about another. When I de- 
stroyed the other also, its whole stock seemed entirely 
exhausted, and it could spin no more. The arts it 
made use of to support itself, now deprived of its great 
means of subsistence, were indeed surprising. I have 
seen it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless 
for hours together, but cautiously watching all the 
time; when a fly happened to approach sufficiently 
near, it would dart out all at once, and often seize its 
prey. 

" Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, 
and resolved to invade the possession of some other 
spider, since it could not make a web of its own. It 
formed an attack upon a neighboring fortification 
with great vigor, and at first was as vigorously re- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 233 

pulsed. Not daunted, however, with one defeat, in 
this manner it continued to lay siege to another's web 
for three days, and at length, having killed the de- 
fendant, actually took possession. When smaller flies 
happen to fall into the snare, the spider does not sally 
out at once, but very patiently waits till it is sure of 
them; for, upon his immediately approaching, the 
terror of his appearance might give the captive strength 
sufficient to get loose; the manner, then, is to wait 
patiently, till, by ineffectual and impotent struggles, 
the captive has wasted all its strength, and then he 
becomes a certain and easy conquest. 

"The insect I am now describing lived three years; 
every year it changed its skin and got a new set of 
legs. I have sometimes plucked off a leg, which grew 
again in two or three days. At first it dreaded my 
approach to its web, but at last it became so familiar 
as to take a fly out of my hand ; and, upon my touch- 
ing any part of the web, would immediately leave its 
hole, prepared either for a defence or an attack." 1 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Honors at the Royal Academy. — Letter to his Brother Maurice. 
— Family Fortunes. — Jane Contarine and the Miniature. — 
Portraits and Engravings. — School Associations. — Johnson 
and Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey. 

The latter part of the year 1768 had been made 
memorable in the world of taste by the institution of 
the Royal Academy of Arts, under the patronage of 
the King, and the direction of forty of the most dis- 
tinguished artists. Reynolds, who had been mainly 

i The Bee, No. iv. Prior ed. i. 76. 



234 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

instrumental in founding it, had been unanimously 
elected president, and had thereupon received the 
honor of knighthood. 1 Johnson was so delighted with 
his friend's elevation, that he broke through a rule of 
total abstinence with respect to wine, which he had 
maintained for several years, and drank bumpers on 
the occasion. Sir Joshua eagerly sought to associate 
his old and valued friends with him in his new honors, 
and it is supposed to be through his suggestions that, 
on the first establishment of professorships, which took 
place in December, 1769, Johnson was nominated to 
that of Ancient Literature, and Goldsmith to that of 
History. They were mere honorary titles, without 
emolument, but gave distinction, from the noble in- 
stitution to which they appertained. They also gave 
the possessors honorable places at the annual banquet, 
at which were assembled many of the most distin- 
guished persons of rank and talent, all proud to be 
classed among the patrons of the arts. 

The following letter of Goldsmith to his brother 
alludes to the foregoing appointment, and to a small 
legacy bequeathed to him by his uncle Contarine. 

To Mr. Maurice Goldsmith, at James Lawdor^s, 
Esq., at Kilmore, near Carrick-on- Shannon. 

January, 1770. 
Dear Brother, — I should have answered your 
letter sooner, but, in truth, I am not fond of thinking 
of the necessities of those I love, when it is so very 

1 We must apologize for the anachronism we have permitted 
ourselves in the course of this memoir, in speaking of Reynolds 
as Sir Joshua, when treating of circumstances which occurred 
prior to his being dubbed; but it is so customary to speak of him 
by that title, that we found it difficult to dispense with it. — W. I. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 235 

little in my power to help them. I am sorry to find 
you are every way unprovided for; and what adds to 
my uneasiness is, that I have received a letter from 
my sister Johnson, by which I learn that she is pretty 
much in the same circumstances. As to myself, I 
believe I think I could get both you and my poor 
brother-in-law something like that which you desire, 
but I am determined never to ask for little things, nor 
exhaust any little interest I may have, until I can 
serve you, him, and myself more effectually. As yet, 
no opportunity has offered; but I believe you are 
pretty well convinced that I will not be remiss when 
it arrives. 

The King has lately been pleased to make me pro- 
fessor of Ancient History in the royal academy of 
painting which he has just established, but there is no 
salary annexed ; and I took it rather as a compliment 
to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honors 
to one in my situation are something like ruffles to one 
that wants a shirt. 

You tell me that there are fourteen or fifteen pounds 
left me in the hands of my cousin Lawder, and you 
ask me what I would have done with them. My 
dear brother, I would by no means give any directions 
to my dear worthy relations at Kilmore how to dispose 
of money which is, property speaking, more theirs than 
mine. All that I can say is, that I entirely, and this 
letter will serve to witness, give up any right and title 
to it ; and I am sure they will dispose of it to the best 
advantage. To them I entirely leave it; whether they 
or you may think the whole necessary to fit you out, 
or whether our poor sister Johnson may not want the 
half, I leave entirely to their and your discretion. 
The kindness of that good couple to our shattered 



236 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

family demands our sincerest gratitude; and, though 
they have almost forgotten me, yet, if good things at 
last arrive, I hope one day to return and increase their 
good-humor by adding to my own. 

I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture 
of myself; I believe it is the most acceptable present 
I can offer. I have ordered it to be left for her at 
George Faulkner's, folded in a letter. The face, you 
well know, is ugly enough, but it is finely painted. I 
will shortly also send my friends over the Shannon 
some mezzotinto 1 prints of myself, and some more of 
my friends here, such as Burke, Johnson, Eeynolds, 
and Colman. I believe I have written a hundred 
letters to different friends in your country, and never 
received an answer to any of them. I do not know 
how to account for this, or why they are unwilling to 
keep up for me those regards which I must ever retain 
for them. 

If, then, you have a mind to oblige me, you will 
write often, whether I answer you or not. Let me 
particularly have the news of our family and old ac- 
quaintances. For instance, you may begin by telling 
me about the family where you reside, how they spend 
their time, and whether they ever made mention of 
me. Tell me about my mother, my brother Hodson 
and his son, my brother Harry's son and daughter, 
my sister Johnson, the family of Ballyoughter, what 
is become of them, where they live, and how they do. 
You talked of being my only brother: I don't under- 
stand you. Where is Charles? A sheet of paper 
occasionally filled with the news of this kind would 

1 Med-zo-tin'-to. Printed from mezzotint plates, made by a 
process of engraving on copper or steel. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 237 

make me very happy, and would keep you nearer my 
mind. As it is, my dear brother, believe me to be 
Yours, most affectionately, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

By this letter we find the Goldsmiths the same shift- 
ing, shiftless race as formerly; a "shattered family," 
scrambling on each other's back as soon as any rise 
above the surface. Maurice is "every way unprovided 
for," living upon Cousin Jane and her husband, and 
perhaps amusing himself by hunting otter in the river 
Inny. Sister Johnson and her husband are as poorly 
off as Maurice, with, perhaps, no one at hand to quar- 
ter themselves upon; as to the rest, "What is become 
of them ? where do they live ? and how do they do ? 
What has become of Charles?" What forlorn, hap- 
hazard life is implied by these questions! Can we 
wonder that, with all the love for his native place 
which is shown throughout Goldsmith's writings, he 
had not the heart to return there ? Yet his affections 
are still there. He wishes to know whether the Law- 
ders (which means his cousin Jane, his early Valen- 
tine) ever made mention of him ; he sends Jane his 
miniature; he believes "it is the most acceptable pre- 
sent he can offer;" he evidently, therefore, does not 
believe she has almost forgotten him, although he in- 
timates that he does : in his memory she is still Jane 
Contarine, as he last saw her, when he accompanied 
her harpsichord with his flute. Absence, like death, 
sets a seal on the image of those we have loved ; we 
cannot realize the intervening changes which time may 
have effected. 

As to the rest of Goldsmith's relatives, he abandons 
his legacy of fifteen pounds, to be shared among them. 



238 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

It is all he has to give. His heedless improvidence is 
eating up the pay of the booksellers in advance. With 
all his literary success, he has neither money nor in- 
fluence; but he has empty fame, and he is ready to 
participate with them ; he is honorary professor, with- 
out pay ; his portrait is to be engraved in mezzotint, 
in company with those of his friends, Burke, Rey- 
nolds, Johnson, Colman, and others, and he will send 
prints of them to his friends over the Channel, though 
they may not have a house to hang them up in. What 
a motley letter ! How indicative of the motley char- 
acter of the writer ! By the bye, the publication of 
a splendid mezzotinto engraving of his likeness by 
Reynolds was a great matter of glorification to Gold- 
smith, especially as it appeared in such illustrious 
company. 

As he was one day walking the streets in a state of 
high elation, from having just seen it figuring in the 
print-shop windows, he met a young gentleman with 
a newly married wife hanging on his arm, whom he im- 
mediately recognized for Master Bishop, one of the boys 
he had petted and treated with sweetmeats when a 
humble usher at Milner's school. The kindly feel- 
ings of old times revived, and he accosted him with 
cordial familiarity, though the youth may have found 
some difficulty in recognizing in the personage, ar- 
rayed, perhaps, in garments of Tyrian dye, the dingy 
pedagogue of the Milners. "Come, my boy," cried 
Goldsmith, as if still speaking to a schoolboy, — 
"come, Sam, I am delighted to see you. I must treat 
you to something — what shall it be ? Will you have 
some apples ? " glancing at an old woman's stall; then, 
recollecting the print-shop window: "Sam," said he, 
"have you seen my picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds? 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 239 

Have you seen it, Sam ? Have you got an engraving ? " 
Bishop was caught ; he equivocated ; he had not yet 
bought it; but he was furnishing his house, and had 
fixed upon the place where it was to be hung. "Ah, 
Sam!" rejoined Goldsmith reproachfully, "if your 
picture had been published, I should not have waited 
an hour without having it." 

After all, it was honest pride, not vanity, in Gold- 
smith, that was gratified at seeing his portrait deemed 
worthy of being perpetuated by the classic pencil of 
Reynolds, and "hung up in history" beside that of 
his revered friend Johnson. Even the great moralist 
himself was not insensible to a feeling of this kind. 
Walking one day with Goldsmith, in Westminster 
Abbey, among the tombs of monarchs, warriors, and 
statesmen, they came to the sculptured mementos of 
literary worthies in Poets' Corner. Casting his eye 
round upon these memorials of genius, Johnson mut- 
tered in a low tone to his companion, — 

" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." 

Goldsmith treasured up the intimated hope, and shortly 
afterwards, as they were passing by Temple Bar, where 
the heads of Jacobite rebels, executed for treason, were 
mouldering aloft on spikes, pointed up to the grizzly 
mementos, and echoed the intimation, 

" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." l 
1 Perhaps our names will be joined with these also. 



240 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Publication of "The Deserted Village; " Notices and Illustrations 

of it. 

Several years had now elapsed since the publi- 
cation of "The Traveller," and much wonder was ex- 
pressed that the great success of that poem had not 
excited the author to further poetic attempts. On 
being questioned at the annual dinner of the Royal 
Academy by the Earl of Lisburn, why he neglected 
the Muses to compile histories and write novels, M My 
Lord," replied he, "by courting the Muses I shall 
starve, but by my other labors I eat, drink, have 
good clothes, and can enjoy the luxuries of life." So, 
also, on being asked by a poor writer what was the 
most profitable mode of exercising the pen, — "My 
dear fellow," replied he, good-humoredly, "pay no 
regard to the draggle-tailed Muses ; for my part I have 
found productions in prose much more sought after 
and better paid for." 

Still, however, as we have heretofore shown, he 
found sweet moments of dalliance to steal away from 
his prosaic toils, and court the Muse among the green 
lanes and hedge-rows in the rural environs of London, 
and on the 26th of May, 1770, he was enabled to 
bring his "Deserted Village " before the public. 

The popularity of "The Traveller " had prepared 
the way for this poem, and its sale was instantaneous 
and immense. The first edition was immediately ex- 
hausted ; in a few days a second was issued ; in a few 
days more a third, and by the 16th of August the 
fifth edition was hurried through the press. As is 
the case with popular writers, he had become his own 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 241 

rival, and critics were inclined to give the preference 
to his first poem ; but with the public at large we be- 
lieve "The Deserted Village " has ever been the great- 
est favorite. Previous to its publication the book- 
seller gave him in advance a note for the price agreed 
upon, one hundred guineas. As the latter was return- 
ing home he met a friend to whom he mentioned the 
circumstance, and who, apparently judging of poetry 
by quantity rather than quality, observed that it was 
a great sum for so small a poem. "In truth," said 
Goldsmith, " I think so too ; it is much more than the 
honest man can afford or the piece is worth. I have 
not been easy since I received it." In fact, he actu- 
ally returned the note to the bookseller, and left it to 
him to graduate the payment according to the success 
of the work. The bookseller, as may well be sup- 
posed, soon repaid him in full with many acknowledg- 
ments of his disinterestedness. This anecdote has 
been called in question, we know not on what grounds; 
we see nothing in it incompatible with the character 
of Goldsmith, who was very impulsive, and prone to 
acts of inconsiderate generosity. 

As we do not pretend in this summary memoir to 
go into a criticism or analysis of any of Goldsmith's 
writings, we shall not dwell upon the peculiar merits 
of this poem ; we cannot help noticing, however, how 
truly it is a mirror of the author's heart, and of all 
the fond pictures of early friends and early life for- 
ever present there. It seems to us as if the very last 
accounts received from home, of his "shattered fam- 
ily," and the desolation that seemed to have settled 
upon the haunts of his childhood, had cut the roots of 
one feebly cherished hope, and produced the following 
exquisitely tender and mournful lines : — 



242 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" In all my wand'rings round this world of care, 
In all my griefs — and God has giv'n my share — 
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, 
Amid these humble bowers to lay me down; 
To husband out life's taper at the close, 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose; 
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, 
Amid the swains to show my book-learn'd skill, 
Around my fire an ev'ning group to draw, 
And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; 
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew ; 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
Here to return — and die at home at last." 

How touchingly expressive are the succeeding lines, 
wrung from a heart which all the trials and temp- 
tations and bufferings of the world could not render 
worldly ; which, amid a thousand follies and errors of 
the head, still retained its childlike innocence; and 
which, doomed to struggle on to the last amidst the din 
and turmoil of the metropolis, had ever been cheating 
itself with a dream of rural quiet and seclusion : — 

" Oh bless'd retirement! friend to life's decline, 
Retreats from care, that never must be mine, 
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 
Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly J 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep; 
Nor surly porter stands, in guilty state, 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate; 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend; 
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 
While resignation gently slopes the way; 
And all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 243 

NOTE 

The following article, which appeared in a London 
periodical, shows the effect of Goldsmith's poem in 
renovating the fortunes of Lissoy. 

"About three miles from Ballymahon, a very cen- 
tral town in the sister kingdom, is the mansion and 
village of Auburn, so called by their present possessor, 
Captain Hogan. Through the taste and improvement 
of this gentleman, it is now a beautiful spot, although 
fifteen years since it presented a very bare and un- 
poetical aspect. This, however, was owing to a cause 
which serves strongly to corroborate the assertion that 
Goldsmith had this scene in view when he wrote his 
poem of 'The Deserted Village.' The then possessor, 
General Napier, turned all his tenants out of their 
farms, that he might enclose them in his own private 
domain. Littleton, the mansion of the General, 
stands not far off, a complete emblem of the desolat- 
ing spirit lamented by the poet, dilapidated and con- 
verted into a barrack. 

"The chief object of attraction is Lissoy, once the 
parsonage house of Henry Goldsmith, that brother to 
whom the poet dedicated his 'Traveller,' and who is 
represented as a village pastor, 

" ' Passing rich with forty pounds a year.' 

"When I was in the country, the lower chambers 
were inhabited by pigs and sheep, and the drawing- 
rooms by oats. Captain Hogan, however, has, I be- 
lieve, got it since into his possession, and has, of 
course, improved its condition. 

"Though at first strongly inclined to dispute the 
identity of Auburn, Lissoy House overcame my scru- 



244 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

pies. As I clambered over the rotten gate, and 
crossed the grass-grown lawn or court, the tide of 
association became too strong for casuistry : here the 
poet dwelt and wrote, and here his thoughts fondly 
recurred when composing his 'Traveller ' in a foreign 
land. Yonder was the decent church, that literally 
'topped the neighboring hill.' Before me lay the lit- 
tle hill of Knockrue, on which he declares, in one of 
his letters, he had rather sit with a book in hand than 
mingle in the proudest assemblies. And, above all, 
startlingly true, beneath my feet was 

" * Yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 

And still where many a garden-flower grows wild.' 

" A painting from the life could not be more exact. 
' The stubborn currant-bush ' lifts its head above the 
rank grass, and the proud hollyhock flaunts where its 
sisters of the flower-knot are no more. 

"In the middle of the village stands the old 'haw- 
thorn tree,' built up with masonry to distinguish and 
preserve it; it is old and stunted, and suffers much 
from the depredations of post-chaise travellers, who 
generally stop to procure a twig. Opposite to it is 
the village ale-house, over the door of which swings 
'The Three Jolly Pigeons.' Within, everything is 
arranged according to the letter : — 

" ' The whitewash'd wall, the nicely-sanded floor, 
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door: 
The chest, contrived a double debt to pay, 
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; 
The pictures placed for ornament and use, 
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.' 

"Captain Hogan, I have heard, found great diffi- 
culty in obtaining 'the twelve good rules, ' but at length 
purchased them at some London book-stall to adorn 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 245 

the whitewashed parlor of 'The Three Jolly Pigeons.' 
However laudable this may be, nothing shook my 
faith in the reality of Auburn so much as this exact- 
ness, which had the disagreeable air of being got up 
for the occasion. The last object of pilgrimage is the 
quondam habitation of the schoolmaster, 

"'There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule.' 

It is surrounded with fragrant proofs of identity in 

" ' The blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay.' 

There is to be seen the chair of the poet, which fell 
into the hands of its present possessors at the wreck 
of the parsonage house ; they have frequently refused 
large offers of purchase; but more, I dare say, for 
the sake of drawing contributions from the curious 
than from any reverence for the bard. The chair is 
of oak, with back and seat of cane, which precluded 
all hopes of a secret drawer, like that lately discovered 
in Gay's. 1 There is no fear of its being worn out by 
the devout earnestness of sitters — as the cocks and 
hens have usurped undisputed possession of it, and 
protest most clamorously against all attempts to get 
it cleansed or to seat one's self. 

" The controversy 2 concerning the identity of this 

1 John Gay (1685-1732), the English poet, left a chair in 
which there was a secret drawer. Ninety years after his death 
the drawer was discovered, and in it several poems in manuscript. 
These were published as Gay's Chair Poems. 

2 Compare Macaulay's statements: "The village in its happy 
days is a true English village. The village in its decay is an 
Irish village. The felicity and the misery which Goldsmith has 
brought close together belong to two different countries, and to 
two different stages in the progress of society. He had assuredly 
never seen in his native island such a rural paradise, such a seat 
of plenty, content, and tranquillity as his « Auburn.' He had as- 



246 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Auburn was formerly a standing theme of discussion 
among the learned of the neighborhood; but, since 
the pros and cons have been all ascertained, the argu- 
ment has died away. Its abettors plead the singular 
agreement between the local history of the place and 
the Auburn of the poem, and the exactness with which 
the scenery of the one answers to the description of the 
other. To this is opposed the mention of the nightin- 
gale, 

" ' And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made; ' 
there being no such bird in the island. The objection 
is slighted, on the other hand, by considering the pas- 
sage as a mere poetical license. 'Besides,' say they, 
'the robin is the Irish nightingale.' And if it be 
hinted how unlikely it was that Goldsmith should have 
laid the scene in a place from which he was and had 
been so long absent, the rejoinder is always, 'Pray, 
sir, was Milton in hell when he built Pandemonium ? ' * 
" The line is naturally drawn between ; there can be 
no doubt that the poet intended England by 

" ' The land to hast'ning ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.' 

But it is very natural to suppose that, at the same 
time, his imagination had in view the scenes of his 
youth, which give such strong features of resemblance 
to the picture." 

suredly never seen in England all the inhabitants of such a para- 
dise turned out of their homes in one day and forced to emigrate 
in a body to America. The hamlet he had probably seen in Kent; 
the ejectment he had probably seen in Munster; but, by joining 
the two, he has produced something which never was and never 
will be seen in any part of the world." Essay on Goldsmith. 

1 " At Pandemonium, the high capital 
Of Satan and his peers." 
See Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. I. 11. 701 and the following. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 247 

Best, an Irish clergyman, told Davis, the traveller 
in America, that the hawthorn bush mentioned in the 
poem was still remarkably large. " I was riding once, " 
said he, "with Brady, titular Bishop of Ardagh, when 
he observed to me, 'Ma foy, Best, this huge over- 
grown bush is mightily in the way. I will order it to 
be cut down.' 'What, sir! ' replied I, 'cut down the 
bush that supplies so beautiful an image in " The De- 
serted Village"? ' 'Ma foy! ' exclaimed the bishop, 
'is that the hawthorn bush? Then let it be sacred 
from the edge of the axe, and evil be to him that should 
cut off a branch.' " The hawthorn bush, however, has 
long since been cut up, root and branch, in furnishing 
relics to literary pilgrims. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

The Poet among the Ladies ; Description of His Person and 
Manners. — Expedition to Paris with the Horneck Family. — 
The Traveller of Twenty and the Traveller of Forty. — Hickey, 
the Special Attorney. — An Unlucky Exploit. 

"The Deserted Village" had shed an additional 
poetic grace round the homely person of the author ; 
he was becoming more and more acceptable in ladies' 
eyes, and finding himself more and more at ease in 
their society ; at least in the society of those whom he 
met in the Reynolds circle, among whom he particu- 
larly affected the beautiful family of the Hornecks. 

But let us see what were really the looks and man- 
ners of Goldsmith about this time, and what right he 
had to aspire to ladies' smiles; and in so doing let us 
not take the sketches of Bos well and his compeers, 
who had a propensity to represent him in caricature ; 



248 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

but let us take the apparently truthful and discrim- 
inating picture of him as he appeared to Judge Day, 
when the latter was a student in the Temple. 

"In person," says the.Judge, "he was short; about 
five feet five or six inches ; strong, but not heavy in 
make; rather fair in complexion, with brown hair; 
such at least as could be distinguished from his wig. 
His features were plain, but not repulsive, — certainly 
not so when lighted up by conversation. His man- 
ners were simple, natural, and perhaps on the whole, 
we may say, not polished ; at least without the refine- 
ment and good-breeding which the exquisite polish of 
his compositions would lead us to expect. He was 
always cheerful and animated, often, indeed, boister- 
ous in his mirth; entered with spirit into convivial 
society; contributed largely to its enjoyments by 
solidity of information, and the naivete and origin- 
ality of his character; talked often without premedi- 
tation, and laughed loudly without restraint." 

This, it will be recollected, represents him as he 
appeared to a young Templar, who probably saw him 
only in Temple coffee-houses, at students' quarters, 
or at the jovial supper-parties given at the poet's own 
chambers. Here, of course, his mind was in its rough 
dress ; his laugh may have been loud and his mirth 
boisterous ; but we trust all these matters became soft- 
ened and modified when he found himself in polite 
drawing-rooms and in female society. 

But what say the ladies themselves of him; and 
here fortunately, we have another sketch of him, as he 
appeared at the time to one of the Horneck circle; in 
fact, we believe, to the Jessamy Bride herself. After 
admitting, apparently, with some reluctance, that " he 
was a very plain man," she goes on to say, "but had 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 249 

he been much more so, it was impossible not to love 
and respect his goodness of heart, which broke out on 
every occasion. His benevolence was unquestionable, 
and his countenance bore every trace of it : no one 
that knew him intimately could avoid admiring and 
loving his good qualities." When to all this we add 
the idea of intellectual delicacy and refinement asso- 
ciated with him by his poetry and the newly-plucked 
bays that were flourishing round his brow, we cannot 
be surprised that fine and fashionable ladies should be 
proud of his attentions, and that even a young beauty 
should not be altogether displeased with the thoughts 
of having a man of his genius in her chains. 

We are led to indulge some notions of the kind from 
finding him in the month of July, but a few weeks after 
the publication of "The Deserted Village," setting off 
on a six weeks' excursion to Paris, in company with 
Mrs. Horneck and her two beautiful daughters. A 
day or two before his departure, we find another new 
gala suit charged to him on the books of Mr. William 
Filby. Were the bright eyes of the Jessamy Bride 
responsible for this additional extravagance of ward- 
robe ? Goldsmith had recently been editing the works 
of Parnell ; ' had he taken courage from the example 
of Edwin in the Fairy tale ? — 

" Yet spite of all that nature did 
To make his uncouth form forbid, 

This creature dared to love. 
He felt the force of Edith's eyes, 
Nor wanted hope to gain the prize 
Could ladies look within." 2 — 

1 Thomas Parnell (1679-1718), a British poet, was born in 
Dublin and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. 

2 These lines are from Parnell's poem entitled " A Fairv 
Tale." 



250 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

All this we throw out as mere hints and surmises, 
leaving it to our readers to draw their own conclusions. 
It will be found, however, that the poet was subjected 
to shrewd bantering among his contemporaries about 
the beautiful Mary Horneck, and that he was extremely 
sensitive on the subject. 

It was in the month of June that he set out for 
Paris with his fair companions, and the following let- 
ter was written by him to Sir Joshua Reynolds, soon 
after the party landed at Calais. 

My dear Friend, — We had a very quick passage 
from Dover to Calais, which we performed in three 
hours and twenty minutes, all of us extremely seasick, 
which must necessarily have happened, as my machine 
to prevent seasickness was not completed. We were 
glad to leave Dover, because we hated to be imposed 
upon ; so were in high spirits at coming to Calais, 
where we were told that a little money would go a 
great way. 

Upon landing, with two little trunks, which was all 
we carried with us, we were surprised to see fourteen 
or fifteen fellows all running down to the ship to lay 
their hands upon them ; four got under each trunk, 
the rest surrounded and held the hasps ; and in this 
manner our little baggage was conducted, with a kind 
of funeral solemnity, till it was safely lodged at the 
custom-house. We were well enough pleased with 
the people's civility till they came to be paid; every 
creature that had the happiness of touching our trunks 
with their finger expected sixpence, and they had so 
pretty and civil a manner of demanding it, that there 
was no refusing them. 

When we had done with the porters, we had next 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 251 

to speak with the custom-house officers, who had their 
pretty civil way too. Were directed to the Hotel 
d'Angleterre, where a valet-de-place came to offer his 
service, and spoke to me ten minutes before I once 
found out that he was speaking English. We had no 
occasion for his services, so we gave him a little money 
because he spoke English, and because he wanted it. 
I cannot help mentioning another circumstance: I 
bought a new riband for my wig at Canterbury, and 
the barber at Calais broke it in order to gain sixpence 
by buying me a new one. 

An incident which occurred in the course of this 
tour has been tortured by that literary magpie, Bos- 
well, into a proof of Goldsmith's absurd jealousy of 
any admiration shown to others in his presence. While 
stopping at a hotel in Lisle, they were drawn to the 
windows by a military parade in front. The extreme 
beauty of the Miss Hornecks immediately attracted 
the attention of the officers, who broke forth with en- 
thusiastic speeches and compliments intended for their 
ears. Goldsmith was amused for a while, but at 
length affected impatience at this exclusive admiration 
of his beautiful companions, and exclaimed, with mock 
severity of aspect, ''Elsewhere I also would have my 
admirers." 

It is difficult to conceive the obtuseness of intellect 
necessary to misconstrue so obvious a piece of mock 
petulance and dry humor into an instance of mortified 
vanity and jealous self-conceit. 

Goldsmith jealous of the admiration of a group of 
gay officers for the charms of two beautiful young 
women ! This even out-Boswells Boswell : yet this 
is but one of several similar absurdities, evidently 



252 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

misconceptions of Goldsmith's peculiar vein of humor, 
by which the charge of envious jealousy has been 
attempted to be fixed upon him. In the present in- 
stance it was contradicted by one of the ladies herself, 
who was annoyed that it had been advanced against 
him. "I am sure," said she, "from the peculiar 
manner of his humor, and assume frownd of counte- 
nance, what was often uttered in jest was mistaken, 
by those who did not know him, for earnest. " No 
one was more prone to err on this point than Boswell. 
He had a tolerable perception of wit, but none of 
humor. 1 

The following letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds was 
subsequently written. 

To Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

Paris, July 29, [1770.] 

My dear Friend, — I began a long letter to you 
from Lisle, giving a description of all that we had 
done and seen, but, finding it very dull, and knowing 
that you would show it again, I threw it aside and it 
was lost. You see by the top of this letter that we 
are at Paris, and (as I have often heard you say) we 
have brought our own amusement with us, for the 
ladies do not seem to be very fond of what we have 
yet seen. 

With regard to myself, I find that travelling at 
twenty and forty are very different things. I set out 
with all my confirmed habits about me, and can find 
nothing on the Continent so good as when I formerly 
left it. One of our chief amusements here is scolding 
at everything we meet with, and praising everything 
and every person we left at home. You may judge, 
1 What is the distinction between wit and humor ? 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 253 

therefore, whether your name is not frequently bandied 
at table among us. To tell you the truth, I never 
thought I could regret your absence so much as our 
various mortifications on the road have often taught 
me to do. I could tell you of disasters and adventures 
without number; of our lying in barns, and of my 
being half poisoned with a dish of green peas ; of our 
quarrelling with postilions, and being cheated by our 
landladies; but I reserve all this for a happy hour 
which I expect to share with you upon my return. 

I have little to tell you more, but that we are at 
present all well, and expect returning when we have 
stayed out one month, which I did not care if it were 
over this very day. I long to hear from you all, how 
you yourself do, how Johnson, Burke, Dyer, 1 Cha- 
mier, 2 Colman, and every one of the club do. I wish 
I could send you some amusement in this letter, but I 
protest I am so stupefied by the air of this country (for 
I am sure it cannot be natural) that I have not a word 
to say. I have been thinking of the plot of a comedy, 
which shall be entitled "A Journey to Paris," in 
which a family shall be introduced with a full inten- 
tion of going to France to save money. You know 
there is not a place in the world more promising for 
that purpose. As for the meat of this country, I can 
scarce eat it; and though we pay two good shillings a 
head for our dinner, I find it all so tough that I have 
spent less time with my knife than my picktooth. I 
said this as a good thing at the table, but it was not 
understood. I believe it to be a good thing. 

1 Samuel Dyer (1725-1772), who translated Plutarch's Lives, 
became a member of the Literary Club in 1764. 

3 Anthony Chamier (1725-1780), a friend of Dr. Johnson, 
also became a member of the Literary Club in 1764. 



254 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

As for our intended journey to Devonshire, I find 
it out of my power to perform it ; for, as soon as I 
arrive at Dover, I intend to let the ladies go on, and 
I will take a country lodging somewhere near that 
place in order to do some business. I have so outrun 
the constable that I must mortify a little to bring it 
up again. For God's sake, the night you receive this 
take your pen in your hand and tell me something 
about yourself and myself, if you know anything that 
has happened. About Miss Keynolds, about Mr. 
Bicker staff, my nephew, or anybody that you regard. 
I beg you will send to Griffin the bookseller to know 
if there be any letters left for me, and be so good as 
to send them to me at Paris. They may perhaps be 
left for me at the Porter's Lodge, opposite the pump 
in Temple Lane. The same messenger will do. I 
expect one from Lord Clare, from Ireland. As for 
the others, I am not much uneasy about. 

Is there anything I can do for you at Paris? I wish 
you would tell me. The whole of my own purchases 
here is one silk coat, which I have put on, and which 
makes me look like a fool. But no more of that. I 
find that Colman has gained his lawsuit. I am glad 
of it. I suppose you often meet. I will soon be 
among you, better pleased with my situation at home 
than I ever was before. And yet I must say, that, if 
anything could make France pleasant, the very good 
woman with whom I am at present would certainly do 
it. I could say more about that, but I intend showing 
them the letter before I send it away. What signifies 
teasing you longer with moral observations, when the 
business of my writing is over? I have one thing 
only more to say, and of that I think every hour in 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 255 

the day, namely, that I am your most sincere and 
most affectionate friend, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

Direct to me at the Hotel de Danemarc, > 
Rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germains. } 

A word of comment on this letter : — 

Travelling is, indeed, a very different thing with 
Goldsmith the poor student at twenty, and Goldsmith 
the poet and professor at forty. At twenty, though 
obliged to trudge on foot from town to town, and 
country to country, paying for a supper and a bed by 
a tune on the flute, everything pleased, everything 
was good; a truckle-bed in a garret was a couch of 
down, and the homely fare of the peasant a feast fit 
for an epicure. Now, at forty, when he posts through 
the country in a carriage, with fair ladies by his side, 
everything goes wrong : he has to quarrel with postil- 
ions, he is cheated by landladies, the hotels are barns, 
the meat is too tough to be eaten, and he is half poi- 
soned by green peas ! A line in his letter explains 
the secret: "the ladies do not seem to be very fond 
of what we have seen. One of our chief amusements 
is scolding at everything we meet with, and praising 
everything and every person we have left at home ! " 
— the true English travelling amusement. Poor Gold- 
smith! he has "all his confirmed habits about him; " 
that is to say, he has recently risen into high life, and 
acquired high-bred notions; he must be fastidious 
like his fellow-travellers; he dare not be pleased with 
what pleased the vulgar tastes of his youth. He is 
unconsciously illustrating the trait so humorously sa- 
tirized by him in Ned Tibbs, 1 the shabby beau, who 

1 Beau Tibbs, a character in Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, 



256 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

can find "no such dressing as he had at Lord Crump's 
or Lady Crimp's;" whose very senses have grown 
genteel, and who no longer "smacks at wretched wine 
or praises detestable custard." A lurking thorn, too, 
is worrying him throughout this tour ; he has " outrun 
the constable; " that is to say, his expenses have out- 
run his means, and he will have to make up for this 
butterfly flight by toiling like a grub on his return. 

Another circumstance contributes to mar the plea- 
sure he had promised himself in this excursion. At 
Paris the party is unexpectedly joined by a Mr. 
Hickey, a bustling attorney, who is well acquainted 
with that metropolis and its environs, and insists on 
playing the cicerone * on all occasions. He and Gold- 
smith do not relish each other, and they have several 
petty altercations. The lawyer is too much a man of 
business and method for the careless poet, and is dis- 
posed to manage everything. He has perceived Gold- 
smith's whimsical peculiarities without properly ap- 
preciating his merits, and is prone to indulge in broad 
bantering and raillery at his expense, particularly 
irksome if indulged in presence of the ladies. He 
makes himself merry on his return to England, by 
giving the following anecdote as illustrative of Gold- 
smith's vanity : — 

"Being with a party at Versailles, viewing the 
water- works, a question arose among the gentlemen 
present, whether the distance from whence they stood 

was a shabbily dressed man who lived poorly. His conversation, 
however, was sprinkled with names of Lords and Ladies whom 
he mentioned as intimate friends. See Letter lxxi. Prior ed. 
ii. 298. 

1 Cicerone (sis-e-ro'-ne) = a guide ; one who explains all the 
interesting features of a place. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 257 

to one of the little islands was within the compass of 
a leap. Goldsmith maintained the affirmative ; but, 
being bantered on the subject, and remembering his 
former prowess as a youth, attempted the leap, but, 
falling short, descended into the water, to the great 
amusement of the company." 

Was the Jessamy Bride a witness of this unlucky 
exploit? 

This same Hickey is the one of whom Goldsmith, 
some time subsequently, gave a good-humored sketch, 
in his poem of "The Retaliation." 

" Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature, 
And slander itself must allow him good-nature; 
He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper, 
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. 
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser; 
I answer, No, no, for he always was wiser; 
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat ? 
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that; 
Perhaps he confided in men as they go, 
And so was too foolishly honest; ? Ah, no! 
Then what was his failing ? Come, tell it, and burn ye — 
He was, could he help it ? a special attorney." 

One of the few remarks extant made by Goldsmith 
during his tour is the following, of whimsical import, 
in his "Animated Nature: " — 

"In going through the towns of France, some time 
since, I could not help observing how much plainer 
their parrots spoke than ours, and how very distinctly 
I understood their parrots speak French, when I could 
not understand our own, though they spoke my native 
language. I at first ascribed it to the different quali- 
ties of the two languages, and was for entering into 
an elaborate discussion on the vowels and consonants ; 
but a friend that was with me solved the difficulty at 



258 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

once, by assuring me that the French women scarce 
did anything else the whole day than sit and instruct 
their feathered pupils; and that the birds were thus 
distinct in their lessons in consequence of continual 
schooling." 

His tour does not seem to have left in his memory 
the most fragrant recollections ; for, being asked, after 
his return, whether travelling on the Continent repaid 
"an Englishman for the privations and annoyances 
attendant on it," he replied, "I recommend it by all 
means to the sick, if they are without the sense of 
smelling, and to the poor if they are without the sense 
of feeling, and to both if they can discharge from 
their minds all idea of what in England we term 
comfort." 

It is needless to say that the universal improve- 
ment in the art of living on the Continent has at the 
present day taken away the force of Goldsmith's reply, 
though even at the time it was more humorous than 
correct. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Death of Goldsmith's Mother. — Biography of Parnell. — Agree- 
ment with Davies for the History of Rome. — Life of Boling- 
broke. — The Haunch of Venison. 

On his return to England, Goldsmith received the 
melancholy tidings of the death of his mother. Not- 
withstanding the fame as an author to which he had 
attained, she seems to have been disappointed in her 
early expectations from him. Like others of his fam- 
ily, she had been more vexed by his early follies than 
pleased by his proofs of genius; and in subsequent 
years, when he had risen to fame and to intercourse 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 259 

with the great, had been annoyed at the ignorance of 
the world, and want of management, which prevented 
him from pushing his fortune. He had always, how- 
ever, been an affectionate son, and in the latter years 
of her life, when she had become blind, contributed 
from his precarious resources to prevent her from 
feeling want. 

He now resumed the labors of his pen, which his 
recent excursion to Paris rendered doubly necessary. 
We should have mentioned a "Life of Parnell," pub- 
lished by him shortly after "The Deserted Village." 
It was, as usual, a piece of job work, hastily got up 
for pocket-money. Johnson spoke slightingly of it, 
and the author himself thought proper to apologize 
for its meagreness, — yet, in so doing, used a simile 
which for beauty of imagery and felicity of language 
is enough of itself to stamp a value upon the essay. 

"Such," says he, "is the very unpoetical detail of 
the life of a poet. Some dates and some few facts, 
scarcely more interesting than those that make the 
ornaments of a country tombstone, are all that remain 
of one whose labors now begin to excite universal curi- 
osity. A poet while living is seldom an object suffi- 
ciently great to attract much attention ; his real merits 
are known but to a few, and these are generally spar- 
ing in their praises. When his fame is increased by 
time, it is then too late to investigate the peculiarities 
of his disposition; the dews of morning are past, and 
we vainly try to continue the chase by the meridian 
splendor." 

He now entered into an agreement with Davies to 
prepare an abridgment, in one volume duodecimo, of 
his "History of Rome;" but first to write a work for 
which there was a more immediate demand. Davies 



260 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

was about to republish Lord Bolingbroke's "Disser- 
tation on Parties, " l which he conceived would be 
exceedingly applicable to the affairs of the day, and 
make a probable hit during the existing state of vio- 
lent political excitement; to give it still greater effect 
and currency, he engaged Goldsmith to introduce it 
with a prefatory life of Lord Bolingbroke. 

About this time Goldsmith's friend and country- 
man, Lord Clare, was in great affliction, caused by 
the death of his only son, Colonel Nugent, and stood 
in need of the sympathies of a kind-hearted friend. 
At his request, therefore, Goldsmith paid him a visit 
at his seat of Gosfield, taking his tasks with him. 
Davies was in a worry lest Gosfield Park should prove 
a Capua 2 to the poet, and the time be lost. "Dr. 
Goldsmith," writes he to a friend, "has gone with 
Lord Clare into the country, and I am plagued to get 
the proofs from him of the 'Life of Lord Boling- 
broke.' " The proofs, however, were furnished in 
time for the publication of the work in December. 
The "Biography," though written during a time of 
political turmoil, and introducing a work intended to 

1 Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751), an emi- 
nent English statesman and political writer, was a close friend of 
Pope and Swift. He held several high positions in the ministry 
between 1704 and 1714, but was opposed to the accession of the 
House of Hanover, and fled to France on the death of Queen 
Anne. He returned to England after a while. He was a writer 
of great power, but was altogether without principle. His Dis- 
sertation appeared in 1735. In 1770, when Goldsmith's Life ap- 
peared, party spirit was violent. The Tories were in power; the 
Whigs were divided into Old Whigs and New Whigs. 

2 Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, after his famous victo- 
ries, wintered in Capua (216-215 B.C.). His subsequent want 
of success is often attributed to the enervating effects of Capuan 
life on his soldiers. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 261 

be thrown into the arena of politics, maintained that 
freedom from party prejudice observable in all the 
writings of Groldsmith. It was a selection of facts, 
drawn from many unreadable sources, and arranged 
into a clear, flowing narrative, illustrative of the ca- 
reer and character of one who, as he intimates, " seemed 
formed by Nature to take delight in struggling with 
opposition; whose most agreeable hours were passed 
in storms of his own creating; whose life was spent 
in a continual conflict of politics, and as if that was 
too short for the combat, has left his memory as a 
subject of lasting contention." The sum received by 
the author for this memoir is supposed, from circum- 
stances, to have been forty pounds. 

Goldsmith did not find the residence among the 
great unattended with mortifications. He had now 
become accustomed to be regarded in London as a 
literary lion, and was annoyed at what he considered 
a slight on the part of Lord Camden. 1 He com- 
plained of it on his return to town at a party of his 
friends. "I met him," said he, "at Lord Clare's 
house in the country ; and he took no more notice of 
me than if I had been an ordinary man." "The com- 
pany," says Boswell, "laughed heartily at this piece 
of ' diverting simplicity.' " And foremost among the 
laughers was doubtless the rattle-pated Boswell. 
Johnson, however, stepped forward, as usual, to de- 
fend the poet, whom he would allow no one to assail 
but himself ; perhaps in the present instance he thought 
the dignity of literature itself involved in the question. 

1 Charles Pratt (1714-1794) was Lord Chancellor of England 
from 1766 to 1770. He was a follower and close friend of the 
first William Pitt, and a warm advocate of the cause of justice 
to the American colonies. 



262 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"Nay, gentlemen," roared he, "Dr. Goldsmith is in 
the right. A nobleman ought to have made up to 
such a man as Goldsmith, and I think it is much 
against Lord Camden that he neglected him." 

After Goldsmith's return to town he received from 
Lord Clare a present of game, which he has celebrated 
and perpetuated in his amusing verses entitled "The 
Haunch of Venison." Some of the lines pleasantly 
set forth the embarrassment caused by the appearance 
of such an aristocratic delicacy in the humble kitchen 
of a poet accustomed to look up to mutton as a treat : — 

" Thanks, my lord, for your venison ; for finer or fatter 

Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter: 

The haunch was a picture for painters to study, 

The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy; 

Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting 

To spoil such a delicate picture by eating: 

I had thought in my chambers to place it in view, 

To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu ; 

As in some Irish houses where things are so-so, 

One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show; 

But, for eating a rasher, of what they take pride in, 

They 'd as soon think of eating the pan it was fry'd in. 

But hang it — to poets, who seldom can eat, 
Your very good mutton 's a very good treat; 
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt; 
It 's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt." 

We have an amusing anecdote of one of Goldsmith's 
blunders which took place on a subsequent visit to 
Lord Clare's, when that nobleman was residing in 
Bath. 

Lord Clare and the Duke of Northumberland had 
houses next to each other, of similar architecture. 
Returning home one morning from an early walk, 
Goldsmith, in one of his frequent fits of absence, mis- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 263 

took the house, and walked up into the Duke's dining- 
room, where he and the Duchess were about to sit 
down to breakfast. Goldsmith, still supposing him- 
self in the house of Lord Clare, and that they were 
visitors, made them an easy salutation, being acquainted 
with them, and threw himself on a sofa in the loung- 
ing manner of a man perfectly at home. The Duke 
and Duchess soon perceived his mistake, and, while 
they smiled internally, endeavored, with the consider- 
ateness of well-bred people, to prevent any awkward 
embarrassment. They accordingly chatted sociably 
with him about matters in Bath, until, breakfast be- 
ing served, they invited him to partake. The truth 
at once flashed upon poor heedless Goldsmith; he 
started up from his free-and-easy position, made a 
confused apology for his blunder, and would have 
retired perfectly disconcerted, had not the Duke and 
Duchess treated the whole as a lucky occurrence to 
throw him in their way, and exacted a promise from 
him to dine with them. 

This may be' hung up as a companion-piece to his 
blunder on his first visit to Northumberland House. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Dinner at the Royal Academy. — The Rowley Controversy. — 
Horace Walpole's Conduct to Chatterton. — Johnson at Red- 
cliffe Church. — Goldsmith's History of England. — Davies's 
Criticism. — Letter to Bennet Langton. 

On St. George's day 1 of this year (1771), the first 
annual banquet of the Royal Academy was held in the 
exhibition-room ; the walls of which were covered with 

1 April 23, observed in honor of the patron saint of England. 



264 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

works of art, about to be submitted to public inspec- 
tion. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who first suggested this 
elegant festival, presided in his official character; 
Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith, of course, were present, 
as Professors of the Academy ; and, besides the Acad- 
emicians, there was a large number of the most dis- 
tinguished men of the day as guests. Goldsmith on 
this occasion drew on himself the attention of the 
company by launching out with enthusiasm on the 
poems recently given to the world by Chatterton, 1 as 
the works of an ancient author by the name of Row- 
ley, discovered in the tower of Redcliffe Church, at 
Bristol. Goldsmith spoke of them with rapture, as 
a treasure of old English poetry. This immediately 
raised the question of their authenticity, they having 
been pronounced a forgery of Chatterton 's. Gold- 
smith was warm for their being genuine. When he 
considered, he said, the merit of the poetry, the ac- 
quaintance with life and the human heart displayed 
in them, the antique quaintness of the language and 
the familiar knowledge of historical events of their 
supposed day, he could not believe it possible they 
could be the work of a boy of sixteen, of narrow edu- 
cation, and confined to the duties of an attorney's 
office. They must be the productions of Rowley. 

Johnson, who was a stout unbeliever in Rowley, as 
he had been in Ossian, 2 rolled in his chair and laughed 

1 The Rowley poems were written by Thomas Chatterton 
(1752-1770), when he was only sixteen years of age. Imitating 
the English of an earlier period, he asserted that the poems were 
the work of one Thomas Rowley, a 15th century priest. At first 
Walpole believed his assertion. 

2 Poems published in 1760-1763 by James Macpherson (1736- 
1796) as the work of a semi-historic Scotch bard. They are be- 
lieved to have been written or compiled by Macpherson himself. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 265 

at the enthusiasm of Goldsmith. Horace Walpole, 
who sat near by, joined in the laugh and jeer as soon 
as he found that the "trouvaille," 1 as he called it, "of 
his friend Chatterton," was in question. This matter, 
which had excited the simple admiration of Gold- 
smith, was no novelty to him, he said. "He might, 
had he pleased, have had the honor of ushering the 
great discovery to the learned world." And so he 
might, had he followed his first impulse in the mat- 
ter, for he himself had been an original believer; had 
pronounced some specimen verses sent to him by 
Chatterton wonderful for their harmony and spirit; 
and had been ready to print them and publish them 
to the world with his sanction. When he found, how- 
ever, that his unknown correspondent was a mere boy, 
humble in sphere and indigent in circumstances, and 
when Gray 2 and Mason 3 pronounced the poems forge- 
ries, he had changed his whole conduct towards the 
unfortunate author, and by his neglect and coldness 
had dashed all his sanguine hopes to the ground. 

Exulting in his superior discernment, this cold- 
hearted man of society now went on to divert himself, 
as he says, with the credulity of Goldsmith, whom he 
was accustomed to pronounce "an inspired idiot;" but 
his mirth was soon dashed, for on asking the poet 
what had become of this Chatterton, he was answered, 
doubtless in the feeling tone of one who had experi- 
enced the pangs of despondent genius, that "he had 
been to London, and had destroyed himself." 

1 Trouvaille = thing found. 

2 (1716-1771.) Author of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, 
one of the most learned literary men of his age. 

3 William Mason (1724-1797) was an English poet and a 
friend of Gray. 



266 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The reply struck a pang of self-reproach even to 
the cold heart of Walpole ; a faint blush may have 
visited his cheek at his recent levity. "The persons 
of honor and veracity who were present," said he in 
after years, when he found it necessary to exculpate 
himself from the charge of heartless neglect of genius, 
"will attest with what surprise and concern I thus first 
heard of his death." Well might he feel concern. 
His cold neglect had doubtless contributed to mad- 
den the spirit of that youthful genius, and hurry him 
towards his untimely end; nor have all the excuses 
and palliations of Walpole 's friends and admirers 
been ever able entirely to clear this stigma from his 
fame. 

But what was there in the enthusiasm and credulity 
of honest Goldsmith in this matter, to subject him 
to the laugh of Johnson or the raillery of Walpole? 
Granting the poems were not ancient, were they not 
good? Granting they were not the productions of 
Rowley, were they the less admirable for being the 
productions of Chatterton? Johnson himself testified 
to their merits and the genius of their composer, when, 
some years afterwards, he visited the tower of Red- 
cliffe Church, and was shown the coffer in which poor 
Chatterton had pretended to find them. "This," said 
he, " is the most extraordinary young man that has 
encountered my knowledge. It is wonderful how the 
whelp has written such things." 

As to Goldsmith, he persisted in his credulity, and 
had subsequently a dispute with Dr. Percy on the sub- 
ject, which interrupted and almost destroyed their 
friendship. After all, his enthusiasm was of a gener- 
ous, poetic kind ; the poems remain beautiful monu- 
ments of genius, and it is even now difficult to per- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 267 

suade one's self that they could be entirely the pro- 
ductions of a youth of sixteen. 

In the month of August was published anonymously 
the "History of England," on which Goldsmith had 
been for some time employed. It was in four vol- 
umes, compiled chiefly, as he acknowledged in the 
preface, from Rapin, Carte, Smollett, and Hume, 
"each of whom," says he, "have their admirers, in 
proportion as the reader is studious of political antiq- 
uities, fond of minute anecdote, a warm partisan, or 
a deliberate reasoner." It possessed the same kind 
of merit as his other historical compilations : a clear, 
succinct narrative, a simple, easy, and graceful style, 
and an agreeable arrangement of facts; but was not 
remarkable for either depth of observation or minute 
accuracy of research. -Many passages were trans- 
ferred, with little if any alteration, from his "Letters 
from a Nobleman to his Son " on the same subject. 
The work, though written without party feeling, met 
with sharp animadversions from political scribblers. 
The writer was charged with being unfriendly to lib- 
erty, disposed to elevate monarchy above its proper 
sphere; a tool of ministers; one who would betray 
his country for a pension. Tom Davies, the publisher, 
the pompous little bibliopole of Russell Street, alarmed 
lest the book should prove unsalable, undertook to 
protect it by his pen, and wrote a long article in its 
defence in "The Public Advertiser." He was vain 
of his critical effusion, and sought by nods and winks 
and innuendoes to intimate his authorship. "Have 
you seen," said he, in a letter to a friend, "'An Im- 
partial Account of Goldsmith's History of England ' ? 
If you want to know who was the writer of it, you 
will find him in Russell Street, — but mum I " 



268 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The History, on the whole, however, was well re- 
ceived ; some of the critics declared that English his- 
tory had never before been so usefully, so elegantly 
and agreeably epitomized, " and, like his other histor- 
ical writings, it has kept its ground " in English lit- 
erature. 

Goldsmith had intended this summer, in company 
with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to pay a visit to Bennet 
Langton, at his seat in Lincolnshire, where he was 
settled in domestic life, having the year previously 
married the Countess Dowager of Rothes. The fol- 
lowing letter, however, dated from his chambers in 
the Temple, on the 7th of September, apologizes for 
putting oft' the visit, while it gives an amusing account 
of his summer occupations and of the attacks of the 
critics on his "History of England: " — 

My dear Sir, — Since I had the pleasure of see- 
ing you last, I have been almost wholly in the coun- 
try, at a farmer's house, quite alone, trying to write 
a comedy. It is now finished; but when or how it 
will be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, are 
questions I cannot resolve. I am therefore so much 
employed upon that, that I am under the necessity 
of putting off my intended visit to Lincolnshire for 
this season. Reynolds is just returned from Paris, 
and finds himself now in the case of a truant that 
must make up for his idle time by diligence. We 
have therefore agreed to postpone our journey till 
next summer, when we hope to have the honor of 
waiting upon Lady Rothes and you, and staying dou- 
ble the time of our late intended visit. We often 
meet, and never without remembering you. I see 
Mr. Beauclerc very often both in town and country. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 269 

He is now going directly forward to become a second 
Boyle: a deep in chemistry and physics. Johnson has 
been down on a visit to a country parson, Doctor Tay- 
lor, and is returned to his old haunts at Mrs. Thrale's. 
Burke is a farmer, en attendant 2 a better place ; but 
visiting about too. Every soul is "visiting about and 
merry but myself. And that is hard too, as I have 
been trying these three months to do something to 
make people laugh. There have I been strolling about 
the hedges, studying jests with a most tragical coun- 
tenance. The "Natural History" is about half fin- 
ished, and I will shortly finish the rest. God knows 
I am tired of this kind of finishing, which is but bun- 
gling work; and that not so much my fault as the 
fault of my scurvy circumstances. They begin to 
talk in town of the Opposition's gaining ground; the 
cry of liberty is still as loud as ever. I have pub- 
lished, or Davies has published for me, an "Abridg- 
ment of the History of England," for which I have 
been a good deal abused in the newspapers, for be- 
traying the liberties of the people. God knows I had 
no thought for or against liberty in my head; my 
whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size, 
that, as 'Squire Richard says, would do no harm to 
nobody. However, they set me down as an arrant 
Tory, and consequently an honest man. When you 
come to look at any part of it, you '11 say that I am 
a sore Whig. God bless you, and with my most re- 

1 Robert Boyle (1627-1691), an English chemist, the dis- 
coverer of " Boyle's law of the elasticity of air." 

2 En attendant = while waiting. Burke, two years before this, 
had purchased an estate of six hundred acres. He was busily 
engaged in keeping together that portion of the Whig party 
which followed the Marquis of Rockingham. 



270 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

spectful compliments to her Ladyship, I remain, dear 
Sir, your most affectionate humble servant, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Marriage of Little Comedy. — Goldsmith at Barton. — Practical 
Jokes at the Expense of his Toilet. — Amusements at Barton. 
— Aquatic Misadventure. 

Though Goldsmith found it impossible to break 
from his literary occupations to visit Bennet Langton, 
in Lincolnshire, he soon yielded to attractions from 
another quarter, in which somewhat of sentiment 
may have mingled. Miss Catharine Horneck, one of 
his beautiful fellow-travellers, otherwise called Little 
Comedy, had been married in August to Henry Wil- 
liam Bunbury, Esq., a gentleman of fortune, who has 
become celebrated for the humorous productions of his 
pencil. Goldsmith was shortly afterwards invited to 
pay the newly married couple a visit at their seat, at 
Barton, in Suffolk. How could he resist such an in- 
vitation — especially as the Jessamy Bride would, of 
course, be among the guests ? It is true, he was ham- 
pered with work; he was still more hampered with 
debt ; his accounts with Newbery were perplexed ; but 
all must give way. New advances are procured from 
Newbery, on the promise of a new tale in the style of 
"The Vicar of Wakefield," of which he showed him a 
few roughly sketched chapters; so, his purse replen- 
ished in the old way, "by hook or by crook," he posted 
off to visit the bride at Barton. He found there a joy- 
ous household, and one where he was welcomed with 
affection. Garrick was there, and played the part of 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 271 

master of the revels, for be was an intimate friend of 
the master of the house. Notwithstanding early mis- 
understandings, a social intercourse between the actor 
and the poet had grown up of late, from meeting to- 
gether continually in the same circle. A few partic- 
ulars have reached us concerning Goldsmith while on 
this happy visit. We believe the legend has come 
down from Miss Mary Horneck herself. "While at 
Barton,'' she says, "his manners were always playful 
and amusing, taking the lead in promoting any scheme 
of innocent mirth, and usually prefacing the invita- 
tion with 'Come, now, let us play the fool a little. ' 
At cards, which was commonly a round game, and 
the stake small, he was always the most noisy, affected 
great eagerness to win, and teased his opponents of 
the gentler sex with continual jest and banter on their 
want of spirit in not risking the hazards of the game. 
But one of his most favorite enjoyments was to romp 
with the children, when he threw off all reserve, and 
seemed one of the most joyous of the group. 

"One of the means by which he amused us was 
his songs, chiefly of the comic kiud, which were sung 
with some taste and humor; several, 1 believe, were of 
his own composition, and I regret that I neither have 
copies, which might have been readily procured from 
him at the time, nor do I remember their names." 

His perfect good -humor made him the object of 
tricks of all kinds; often in retaliation of some prank 
which he himself had played on\ Unluckily, these 
tricks were sometimes made at the expense of his 
toilet, which, with a view peradventure to please the 
eye of a certain fair lady, he had again enriched to 
the impoverishment of his purse. "Being at all times 
gay in his dress," says this ladylike legend, "he made 



272 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

his appearance at the breakfast-table in a smart black 
silk coat with an expensive pair of ruffles; the coat 
some one contrived to soil, and it was sent to be 
cleansed; but, either by accident, or probably by de- 
sign, the day after it came home the sleeves became 
daubed with paint, which was not discovered until the 
ruffles also, to his great mortification, were irretrieva- 
bly disfigured. 

"He always wore a wig, a peculiarity which those 
who judge of his appearance only from the fine poet- 
ical head of Reynolds would not suspect; and on one 
occasion some person contrived seriously to injure 
this important adjunct to dress. It was the only one 
he had in the country, and the misfortune seemed ir- 
reparable until the services of Mr. Bunbury's valet 
were called in, who, however, performed his functions 
so indifferently, that poor Goldsmith's appearance 
became the signal for a general smile." 

This was wicked waggery, especially when it was 
directed to mar all the attempts of the unfortunate 
poet to improve his personal appearance, about which 
he was at all times dubiously sensitive, and particu- 
larly when among the ladies. 

We have in a former chapter recorded his unluckj' 
tumble into a fountain at Versailles, when attempting 
a feat of agility in presence of the fair Hornecks. 
Water was destined to be equally baneful to him on 
the present occasion. "Some difference of opinion," 
says the fair narrator, "having arisen with Lord Har- 
rington respecting the depth of a pond, the poet re- 
marked that it was not so deep but that, if anything 
valuable was to be found at the bottom, he would not 
hesitate to pick it up. His lordship, after some ban- 
ter, threw in a guinea; Goldsmith, not to be outdone 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 273 

in this kind of bravado, in attempting to fulfil his 
promise without getting wet, accidentally fell in, to 
the amusement of all present ; but persevered, brought 
out the money, and kept it, remarking that he had 
abundant objects on whom to bestow any farther proofs 
of his lordship's whim or bounty." 

All this is recorded by the beautiful Mary Horneck, 
the Jessamy Bride herself; but while she gives these 
amusing pictures of poor Goldsmith's eccentricities, 
and of the mischievous pranks played off upon him, 
she bears unqualified testimony, which we have quoted 
elsewhere, to the qualities of his head and heart, which 
shone forth in his countenance, and gained him the 
love of all who knew him. 

Among the circumstances of this visit, vaguely 
called to mind by this fair lady in after years, was that 
Goldsmith read to her and her sister the first part of 
a novel which he had in hand. It was doubtless the 
manuscript mentioned at the beginning of this chap- 
ter, on which he had obtained an advance of money 
from Newbery to stave off some pressing debts, and 
to provide funds for this very visit. It never was fin- 
ished. The bookseller, when he came afterwards to 
examine the manuscript, objected to it as a mere nar- 
rative version of "The Good-Natured Man." Gold- 
smith, too easily put out of conceit of his writings, 
threw it aside, forgetting that this was the very New- 
bery who kept his " Vicar of Wakefield " by him nearly 
two years, through doubts of its success. The loss of 
the manuscript is deeply to be regretted; it doubtless 
would have been properly wrought up before given to 
the press, and might have given us new scenes of life 
and traits of character, while it could not fail to bear 
traces of his delightful style. What a pity he had not 



274 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

been guided by the opinions of his fair listeners at 
Barton, instead of that of the astute Mr. Newbery ! 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Dinner at General Oglethorpe's. — Anecdotes of the General. — 
Dispute about Duelling. — Ghost Stories. 

We have mentioned old General Oglethorpe as one 
of Goldsmith's aristocratical acquaintances. This 
veteran, born in 1698, had commenced life early, by 
serving, when a mere stripling, under Prince Eu- 
gene, 1 against the Turks. He had continued in mili- 
tary life, and been promoted to the rank of major- 
general in 1745, and received a command during the 
Scottish rebellion. Being of strong Jacobite tenden- 
cies, he was suspected and accused of favoring the 
rebels ; and though acquitted by a court of inquiry, 
was never afterwards employed ; or, in technical lan- 
guage, was shelved. He had since been repeatedly a 
member of Parliament, and had always distinguished 
himself by learning, taste, active benevolence, and 
high Tory principles. His name, however, has become 
historical, chiefly from his transactions in America, 
and the share he took in the settlement of the colony 
of Georgia. It lies embalmed in honorable immortal- 
ity in a single line of Pope's: — 

1 The celebrated Prince Eugene (1663-1736) was a French- 
man, although he won his fame in the Austrian service; his mother 
was a niece of Cardinal Mazarin. He became commander-in- 
chief of the imperial army, and shared with Marlborough the 
glory of many victories during the War of the Spanish Succession, 
in the early years of the eighteenth century. On August 16, 
1717, while besieging Belgrade, occupied by Turks, he gained a 
decisive victory over a relieving army of 200,000 men. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 27 5 

" One, driven by strong benevolence of soul, 
Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole." 1 

The veteran was now seventy -four years of age, but 
healthy and vigorous, and as much the preux cheva- 
lier 2 as in his younger days, when he served with 
Prince Eugene. His table was often the gathering- 
place of men of talent. Johnson was frequently there, 
and delighted in drawing from the General details of 
his various "experiences." He was anxious that he 
should give the world his life. "I know no man," 
said he, "whose life would be more interesting." Still 
the vivacity of the General's mind and the variety of 
his knowledge made him skip from subject to subject 
too fast for the Lexicographer. " Oglethorpe, " growled 
he, "never completes what he has to say." 

Boswell gives us an interesting and characteristic 
account of a dinner-party at the General's (April 10th, 
1772), at which Goldsmith and Johnson were present. 
After dinner, when the cloth was removed, Oglethorpe, 
at Johnson's request, gave an account of the siege of 
Belgrade, in the true veteran style. Pouring a little 
wine upon the table, he drew his lines and parallels 
with a wet finger, describing the positions of the op- 
posing forces. " Here were we — here were the Turks, " 
to all which Johnson listened with the most earnest 
attention, poring over the plans and diagrams with his 
usual purblind closeness. 

In the course of conversation the General gave an 
anecdote of himself in early life, when serving under 
Prince Eugene. Sitting at table once in company 
with a prince of Wurttemberg, the latter gave a fillip 

1 From Pope's " Imitation of the Second Epistle of the Second 
Book of Horace," lines 276, 277. 

2 Preux chevalier = hrave knight. 



276 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

to a glass of wine, so as to make some of it fly in 
Oglethorpe's face. The manner in which it was done 
was somewhat equivocal. How was it to be taken by 
the stripling officer? If seriously, he must challenge 
the prince ; but in so doing he might fix on himself 
the character of a drawcansir. 1 If passed over with- 
out notice, he might be charged with cowardice. His 
mind was made up in an instant. "Prince," said he, 
smiling, " that is an excellent j oke ; but we do it much 
better in England." So saying he threw a whole 
glass of wine in the Prince's face. "II a bien fait, 
mon Prince," cried an old general present, "vous 
l'avez commence." (He has done right, my Prince; 
you commenced it.) The Prince had the good sense 
to acquiesce in the decision of the veteran, and Ogle- 
thorpe's retort in kind was taken in good part. 

It was probably at the close of this story that the 
officious Boswell, ever anxious to promote conversa- 
tion for the benefit of his note-book, started the ques- 
tion whether duelling were consistent with moral duty. 
The old General fired up in an instant. "Undoubt- 
edly," said he, with a lofty air; "undoubtedly a man 
has a right to defend his honor." Goldsmith imme- 
diately carried the war into Boswell' s own quarters, 
and pinned him with the question, "what he would do 
if affronted ? " The pliant Boswell, who for a mo- 
ment had the fear of the General rather than of John- 
son before his eyes, replied, "he should think it neces- 
sary to fight. " " Why, then, that solves the question, " 

1 Drawcansir was the name of a braggart in Villiers's drama 
" The Rehearsal." He says of himself: — 

11 1 drink, I huff, I strut, look big and stare ; 
All this I can do, because I dare." 

Act iv. sc. 1. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 277 

replied Goldsmith. "No, sir! " thundered out John- 
son; "it does not follow that what a man would do, 
is therefore right." He, however, subsequently went 
into a discussion to show that there were necessities 
in the case arising out of the artificial refinement of 
society, and its proscription of any one who should 
put up with an affront without fighting a duel. "He, 
then," concluded he, "who fights a duel does not fight 
from passion against his antagonist, but out of self- 
defence, to avert the stigma of the world, and to pre- 
vent himself from being driven out of society. I could 
wish there were not that superfluity of refinement ; but 
while such notions prevail, no doubt a man may law- 
fully fight a duel." 

Another question started was whether people who 
disagreed on a capital point could live together in 
friendship. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith 
said they could not, as they had not the idem velle 
atque idem nolle — the same likings and aversions. 
Johnson rejoined, that they must shun the subject on 
which they disagreed. "But, sir," said Goldsmith, 
"when people live together who have something as to 
which they disagree, and which they want to shun, 
they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of 
Bluebeard: 'You may look into all the chambers but 
one ; ' but we should have the greatest inclination to 
look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." 
"Sir," thundered Johnson, in a loud voice, "I am not 
saying that you could live in friendship with a man 
from whom you differ as to some point; I am only 
saying that /could do it." 

Who will not say that Goldsmith had the best of 
this petty contest? How just was his remark! how 
felicitous the illustration of the blue chamber! how 



278 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

rude and overbearing was the argumentum ad homi- 
nem x of Johnson, when he felt that he had the worst 
of the argument ! 

The conversation turned upon ghosts. General 
Oglethorpe told the story of a Colonel Prendergast, 
an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's 2 army, who 
predicted among his comrades that he should die on a 
certain day. The battle of Malplaquet took place on 
that day. The Colonel was in the midst of it, but 
came out unhurt. The firing had ceased, and his 
brother officers jested with him about the fallacy of 
his prediction. "The day is not over," replied he, 
gravely; "I shall die notwithstanding what you see." 
His words proved true. The order for a cessation of 
firing had not reached one of the French batteries, 
and a random shot from it killed the Colonel on the 
spot. Among his effects was found a pocket-book in 
which he had made a solemn entry, that Sir John 
Friend, who had been executed for high treason, had 
appeared to him, either in a dream or vision, and 
predicted that he would meet him on a certain day 
(the very day of the battle). Colonel Cecil, who took 
possession of the effects of Colonel Prendergast, and 
read the entry in the pocket-book, told this story to 
Pope, the poet, in the presence of General Oglethorpe. 

This story, as related by the General, appears to 
have been well received, if not credited, by both John- 

1 " An argument drawn from premises which, whether true or 
not, ought to be admitted by the person to whom they are ad- 
dressed." — Century Dictionary. 

2 John Churchill (1650-1722), first Duke of Marlborough, 
and one of the greatest of English generals, shared with Prince 
Eugene the command of the allied English and Austrian forces 
against the French at the battle of Malplaquet (mal-pla-ka')> 
Sept. 11, 1709. The French were defeated. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 279 

son and Goldsmith, each of whom had something to 
relate in kind. Goldsmith's brother, the clergyman 
in whom he had such implicit confidence, had assured 
him of his having seen an apparition. Johnson also 
had a friend, old Mr. Cave, the printer, at St. John's 
Gate, "an honest man, and a sensible man," who told 
him he had seen a ghost; he did not, however, like to 
talk of it, and seemed to be in great horror whenever 
it was mentioned. "And pray, sir," asked Boswell, 
"what did he say was the appearance? " "Why, sir, 
something of a shadowy being." 

The reader will not be surprised at this supersti- 
tious turn in the conversation of such intelligent men, 
when he recollects that but a few years before this 
time, all London had been agitated by the absurd 
story of the Cock-lane ghost, a matter which Dr. 
Johnson had deemed worthy of his serious investiga- 
tion, and about which Goldsmith had written a pam- 
phlet. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Mr. Joseph Cradook. — An Author's Confidings. — An Aman- 
uensis. — Life at Edgware. — Goldsmith Conjuring. — George 
Colman. — The Fantoccini. 

Among the agreeable acquaintances made by Gold- 
smith about this time was a Mr. Joseph Cradock, a 
young gentleman of Leicestershire, living at his ease, 
but disposed to "make himself uneasy" by meddling 
with literature and the theatre ; in fact, he had a pas- 
sion for plays and players, and had come up to town 
with a modified translation of Voltaire's tragedy of 
"Zobeide," in a view to get it acted. There was no 
great difficulty in the case, as he was a man of fortune, 



280 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

had letters of introduction to persons of note, and was 
altogether in a different position from the indigent 
man of genius whom managers might harass with im- 
punity. Goldsmith met him at the house of Yates, the 
actor, and finding that he was a friend of Lord Clare, 
soon became sociable with him. Mutual tastes quick- 
ened the intimacy, especially as they found means of 
serving each otjier. Goldsmith wrote an epilogue for 
the tragedy of "Zobeide; " and Cradock, who was an 
amateur musician, arranged the music for the "Thre- 
nodia Augustalis," a lament on the death of the 
Princess Dowager of Wales, the political mistress and 
patron of Lord Clare, which Goldsmith had thrown 
off hastily to please that nobleman. The tragedy was 
played with some success at Covent Garden ; the la- 
ment was recited and sung at Mrs. Cornelys' 1 rooms, 
a very fashionable resort in Soho Square, got up 
by a woman of enterprise of that name. It was in 
whimsical parody of those gay and somewhat promis- 
cuous assemblages that Goldsmith used to call the 
motley evening parties at his lodgings "little Cor- 
nelys." 

The "Threnodia Augustalis" was not publicly 
known to be by Goldsmith until several years after 
his death. 

Cradock was one of the few polite intimates who 
felt more disposed to sympathize with the generous 
qualities of the poet than to sport with his eccentri- 

1 Theresa Cornelys (kor-na'-lis) (1723-1797) was a Venetian 
by birth. She came to London and opened what was called the 
Carlisle House, where she gave masquerades and theatricals to 
her patrons. At the time referred to in the text, her house was 
frequented by the wealthy and the influential, but she fell into 
disrepute, and died, friendless, in Fleet Prison. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 281 

cities. He sought his society whenever he came to 
town, and occasionally had him to his seat in the coun- 
try. Goldsmith appreciated his sympathy, and un- 
burdened himself to him without reserve. Seeing the 
lettered ease l in which this amateur author was en- 
abled to live, and the time he could bestow on the 
elaboration of a manuscript, "Ah! Mr. Cradock," 
cried he, "think of me, that must write a volume 
every month ! " He complained to him of the attempts 
made by inferior writers, and by others who could 
scarcely come under that denomination, not only to 
abuse and depreciate his writings, but to render him 
ridiculous as a man ; perverting every harmless senti- 
ment and action into charges of absurdity, malice, or 
folly. "Sir," said he, in the fulness of his heart, "I 
am as a lion baited by curs! " 

Another acquaintance, which he made about this 
time, was a young countryman of the name of M'Don- 
nell, whom he met in a state of destitution, and, of 
course, befriended. The following grateful recollec- 
tions of his kindness and his merits were furnished 
by that person in after years : — 

"It was in the year 1772," writes he, "that the 
death of my elder brother — when in London, on my 
way to Ireland — left me in a most forlorn situation ; 
I was then about eighteen ; I possessed neither friends 
nor money, nor the means of getting to Ireland, of 
which or of England I knew scarcely anything, from 
having so long resided in France. In this situation I 
had strolled about for two or three days, considering 
what to do, but unable to come to any determination, 
when Providence directed me to the Temple Gardens. 

1 Lettered ease = leisure or retirement for the pursuit of liter- 
ary work. 



282 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

I threw myself on a seat, and, willing to forget my 
miseries for a moment, drew out a book; that book 
was a volume of Boileau. 1 I had not been there long 
when a gentleman, strolling about, passed near me, 
and observing, perhaps, something Irish or foreign in 
my garb or countenance, addressed me : ' Sir, you seem 
studious; I hope you find this a favorable place to 
pursue it.' 'Not very studious, sir; I fear it is the 
want of society that brings me hither; 1 am solitary 
and unknown in this metropolis ; ' and a passage from 
Cicero — Oratio pro Archia — occurring to me, I 
quoted it: 'Haec studia pernoctant nobiscum, pere- 
grinantur, rusticantur. ' 2 'You are a scholar, too, 
sir, I perceive.' 'A piece of one, sir; but I ought 
still to have been in the college where I had the good 
fortune to pick up the little I know. ' A good deal of 
conversation ensued; I told him part of my history, 
and he, in return, gave his address in the Temple, 
desiring me to call soon, from which, to my infinite 
surprise and gratification, I found that the person 
who thus seemed to take an interest in my fate was 
my countryman, and a distinguished ornament of 
letters. 

" I did not fail to keep the appointment, and was 
received in the kindest manner. He told me, smil- 
ingly, that he was not rich; that he could do little for 
me in direct pecuniary aid, but would endeavor to put 
me in the way of doing something for myself ; observ- 
ing, that he could at least furnish me with advice not 
wholly useless to a young man placed in the heart of 

1 Boileau (bwa-lo') was a French critic and poet (1636- 
1711). 

2 These studies pass the night with us, wander about with us, 
dwell with us in the country. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 283 

a great metropolis. 'In London,' he continued, 'no- 
thing is to be got for nothing ; you must work ; and 
no man who chooses to be industrious need be under 
obligations to another, for here labor of every kind 
commands its reward. If you think proper to assist 
me occasionally as amanuensis, I shall be obliged, and 
you will be placed under no obligation, until some- 
thing more permanent can be secured for you. ' This 
employment, which I pursued for some time, was to 
translate passages from Buffon, which were abridged 
or altered, according to circumstances, for his 'Natural 
History.'" 

Goldsmith's literary tasks were fast getting ahead 
of him, and he began now to "toil after them in vain." 

Five volumes of the "Natural History " here spoken 
of had long since been paid for by Mr. Griffin, yet 
most of them were still to be written. His young 
amanuensis bears testimony to his embarrassments and 
perplexities, but to the degree of equanimity with 
which he bore them : — 

"It has been said," observes he, "that he was irri- 
table. Such may have been the case at times ; nay, 
I believe it was so ; for what with the continual pur- 
suit of authors, printers, and booksellers, and occa- 
sional pecuniary embarrassments, few could have 
avoided exhibiting similar marks of impatience. But 
it was never so towards me. I saw him only in his 
bland and kind moods, with a flow, perhaps an over- 
flow, of the milk of human kindness for all who were 
in any manner dependent upon him. I looked upon 
him with awe and veneration, and he upon me as a 
kind parent upon a child. 

"His manner and address exhibited much frankness 
and cordiality, particularly to those with whom he 



284 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

possessed any degree of intimacy. His- good-nature 
was equally apparent. You could not dislike the man, 
although several of his follies and foibles you might 
be tempted to condemn. He was generous and incon- 
siderate; money with him had little value." 

To escape from many of the tormentors just alluded 
to, and to devote himself without interruption to his 
task, Goldsmith took lodgings for the summer at a 
farmhouse near the six-mile stone on the Edgware 
road, and carried down his books in two return post- 
chaises. He used to say he believed the farmer's 
family thought him an odd character, similar to that 
in which the Spectator 1 appeared to his landlady and 
her children ; he was The Gentleman, Boswell tells 
us that he went to visit him at the place in company 
with Mickle, 2 translator of the "Lusiad." 3 Gold- 
smith was not at home. Having a curiosity to see his 
apartment, however, they went in, and found curious 
scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the 
wall with a black-lead pencil. 

1 The Spectator was a daily paper published by Steele in 1711- 
12. Addison and others contributed essays to the paper, the 
writer usually assuming the character of a spectator and record- 
ing his thoughts and observations under the guise of a silent 
listener. The Spectator thus speaks of himself: " I am now 
settled with a widow woman, who has a great many children. 
... I remember last winter there were several young girls of 
the neighborhood sitting about the fire with my landlady's daugh- 
ters, and telling stories of spirits and apparitions. Upon my 
opening the door the young women broke off their discourse, but 
my landlady's daughters telling them that it was nobody but the 
gentleman, for that is the name that I go by in the neighborhood 
as well as in the family, they went on without minding me." — 
The Spectator. 

2 A Scottish poet (1735-1788). 
8 The national epic of Portugal. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 285 

The farmhouse in question is still in existence, 
though much altered. It stands upon a gentle em- 
inence in Hyde Lane, commanding a pleasant pro- 
spect towards Hendon. The room is still pointed out 
in which "She Stoops to Conquer" was written, — 
a convenient and airy apartment, up one flight of 
stairs. 

Some matter-of-fact traditions concerning the au- 
thor were furnished, a few years since, by a son of 
the farmer, who was sixteen years of age at the time 
Goldsmith resided with his father. Though he had 
engaged to board with the family, his meals were gen- 
erally sent to him in his room, in which he passed the 
most of his time, negligently dressed, with his shirt 
collar open, busily engaged in writing. Sometimes, 
probably when in moods of composition, he would 
wander into the kitchen, without noticing any one, 
stand musing with his back to the fire, and then hurry 
off again to his room, no doubt to commit to paper 
some thought which had struck him. 

Sometimes he strolled about the fields, or was to 
be seen loitering and reading and musing under the 
hedges. He was subject to fits of wakefulness, and 
read much in bed; if not disposed to read, he still 
kept the candle burning; if he wished to extinguish 
it, and it was out of his reach, he flung his slipper at 
it, which would be found in the morning near the 
overturned candlestick and daubed with grease. He 
was noted here, as everywhere else, for his charitable 
feelings. No beggar applied to him in vain, and he 
evinced on all occasions great commiseration for the 
poor. 

He had the use of the parlor to receive and enter- 
tain company, and was visited by Sir Joshua Rey- 



286 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

nolds, Hugh Boyd, 1 the reputed author of "Junius," 
Sir William Chambers, 2 and other distinguished char- 
acters. He gave occasionally, though rarely, a din- 
ner-party; and on one occasion, when his guests were 
detained by a thunder-shower, he got up a dance, and 
carried the merriment late into the night. 

As usual, he was the promoter of hilarity among 
the young, and at one time took the children of the 
house to see a company of strolling players at Hen- 
don. The greatest amusement to the party, however, 
was derived from his own jokes on the road and his 
comments on the performance, which produced infi- 
nite laughter among his youthful companions. 

Near to his rural retreat at Edgware, a Mr. Se- 
guin, an Irish merchant, of literary tastes, had coun- 
try quarters for his family, where Goldsmith was 
always welcome. 

In this family he would indulge in playful and even 
grotesque humor, and was ready for anything, — con- 
versation, music, or a game of romps. He prided 
himself upon his dancing, and would walk a minuet 
with Mrs. Seguin, to the infinite amusement of her- 
self and the children, whose shouts of laughter he bore 
with perfect good- humor. He would sing Irish songs, 
and the Scotch ballad of "Johnny Armstrong." He 
took the lead in the children's sports of blind-man's- 
buff, hunt the slipper, etc., or in their games at cards, 
and was the most noisy of the party, affecting to cheat 
and to be excessively eager to win; while with chil- 
dren of smaller size he would turn the hind part of 

1 (1746-1794.) He was an essayist of such importance that 
many maintained that he was the veritable Junius. 

2 A British architect (1726-1796). He wrote A Treatise of 
Civil Architecture. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 287 

his wig before, and play all kinds of tricks to amuse 
them. 

One word as to his musical skill and his performance 
on the flute, which comes up so invariably in all his 
fireside revels. He really knew nothing of music sci- 
entifically ; he had a good ear, and may have played 
sweetly ; but we are told he could not read a note of 
music. Roubillac, the statuary, once played a trick 
upon him in this respect. He pretended to score down 
an air as the poet played it, but put down crotchets 
and semibreves at random. When he had finished, 
Goldsmith cast his eye over it and pronounced it cor- 
rect ! It is possible that his execution in music was 
like his style in writing ; in sweetness and melody he 
may have snatched a grace beyond the reach of art ! 

He was at all times a capital companion for children, 
and knew how to fall in with their humors. "I little 
thought," said Miss Hawkins, the woman grown, 
" what I should have to boast when Goldsmith taught 
me to play Jack and Jill by two bits of paper on his 
fingers." He entertained Mrs. Garrick, we are told, 
with a whole budget of stories and songs; delivered 
the "Chimney Sweep " with exquisite taste as a solo; 
and performed a duet with Garrick of " Old Eose and 
Burn the Bellows." 

"I was only five years old," says the late George 
Colman, 1 "when Goldsmith one evening, when drink- 
ing coffee with my father, took me on his knee and 
began to play with me, which amiable act I returned 
with a very smart slap in the face; it must have been 
a tingler, for I left the marks of my little spiteful paw 
upon his cheek. This infantile outrage was followed 

1 George Colman the younger (1762-1836). An English 
actor. The elder Colman has been frequently mentioned. 



288 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

by summary justice, and I was locked up by my father 
in an adjoining room, to undergo solitary imprison- 
ment in the dark. Here I began to howl and scream 
most abominably. At length a friend appeared to 
extricate me from jeopardy; it was the good-natured 
Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, and 
a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially 
red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and 
sobbed, and he fondled and soothed until I began to 
brighten. He seized the propitious moment, placed 
three hats upon the carpet, and a shilling under each ; 
the shillings, he told me, were England, France, and 
Spain. 'Hey, presto, cockolorum! ' cried the Doctor, 
and, lo! on uncovering the shillings, they were all 
found congregated under one. I was no politician at 
the time, and therefore might not have wondered at 
the sudden revolution which brought England, France, 
and Spain all under one crown ; but, as I was also no 
conjurer, it amazed me beyond measure. From that 
time, whenever the Doctor came to visit my father, — 

"'I pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile; ■ 

a game of romps constantly ensued, and we were al- 
ways cordial friends and merry playfellows." 

Although Goldsmith made the Edgware farmhouse 
his headquarters for the summer, he would absent him- 
self for weeks at a time on visits to Mr. Cradock, Lord 
Clare, and Mr. Langton, at their country seats. He 
would often visit town, also, to dine and partake of 
the public amusements. On one occasion he accom- 
panied Edmund Burke to witness a performance of 
the Italian Fantoccini, 1 or puppets, in Panton Street; 
an exhibition which had hit the caprice of the town, 

1 (Fan-to-che'-ne.) 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 289 

and was in a great vogue. The puppets were set in 
motion by wires, so well concealed as to be with diffi- 
culty detected. Boswell, with his usual obtuseness 
with respect to Goldsmith, accuses him of being jeal- 
ous of the puppets! "When Burke," said he, praised 
the dexterity with which one of them tossed a pike, 
'Pshaw,' said Goldsmith with some warmth, 'I can 
do it better myself.'" "The same evening," adds 
Boswell, "when supping at Burke's lodgings, he broke 
his shin by attempting to exhibit to the company how 
much better he could jump over a stick than the 
puppets." 

Goldsmith jealous of puppets! This even passes 
in absurdity Boswell' s charge upon him of being jeal- 
ous of the beauty of the two Miss Hornecks. 

The Panton Street puppets were destined to be a 
source of further amusement to the town, and of an- 
noyance to the little autocrat of the stage. Foote, the 
Aristophanes of the English drama, who was always 
on the alert to turn every subject of popular excite- 
ment to account, seeing the success of the Fantoccini, 
gave out that he should produce a Primitive Puppet 
Show at the Haymarket, to be entitled "The Hand- 
some Chambermaid, or Piety on Pattens," intended 
to burlesque the sentimental comedy which Gar rick 
still maintained at Drury Lane. The idea of a play to 
be performed in a regular theatre by puppets excited 
the curiosity and talk of the town. "Will your pup- 
pets be as large as life, Mr. Foote? " demanded a lady 
of rank. "Oh, no, my lady," replied Foote, ''''not 
much larger than Garrick." 



290 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

Broken Health. — Dissipation and Debts. — The Irish Widow. — 
Practical Jokes. — Scrub. — A Misquoted Pun. — Malagrida. 

— Goldsmith proved to be a Fool. — Distressed Ballad-Singers. 

— The Poet at Ranelagh. 

Goldsmith returned to town in the autumn (1772), 
with his health much disordered. His close fits of sed- 
entary application, during which he in a manner tied 
himself to the mast, had laid the seeds of a lurking 
malady in his system, and produced a severe illness 
in the course of the summer. Town life was not 
favorable to the health either of body or mind. He 
could not resist the siren voice of temptation, which, 
now that he had become a notoriety, assailed him on 
every side. Accordingly we find him launching away 
in a career of social dissipation ; dining and supping 
out; at clubs, at routs, at theatres; he is a guest with 
Johnson at the Thrales', and an object of Mrs. Thrale's 
lively sallies; he is a lion at Mrs. Vesey's 1 and Mrs. 
Montagu's, 2 where some of the high-bred blue-stock- 
ings pronounce him a "wild genius," and others, per- 
adventure, a "wild Irishman." In the meantime his 
pecuniary difficulties are increasing upon him, conflict- 
ing with his proneness to pleasure and expense, and 

1 Elizabeth Vesey (1715-1791) was a friend of Mrs. Mon- 
tagu. She entertained generously. Her parties were given 
every other Tuesday, on " the days when the members of the 
Literary Club dined together and came to her afterwards." 

2 Elizabeth Robinson Montagu (1720-1800) was an author 
and a social leader. Before she built Montagu House (1776), 
she held her salon in Hill Street, where she entertained the 
members of the Literary Club. The epithet "blue-stocking," it 
is said, was first applied to her assemblies. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 291 

contributing by the harassment of his mind to the 
wear and tear of his constitution. His "Animated 
Nature," though not finished, has been entirely paid 
for, and the money spent. The money advanced by 
Garrick on Newbery's note still hangs over him as a 
debt. The tale on which Newbery had loaned from 
two to three hundred pounds previous to the excursion 
to Barton, has proved a failure. The bookseller is 
urgent for the settlement of his complicated account; 
the perplexed author has nothing to offer him in 
liquidation but the copyright of the comedy which he 
has in his portfolio. "Though, to tell you the truth, 
Frank," said he, "there are great doubts of its suc- 
cess." The offer was accepted, and, like bargains 
wrung from Goldsmith in times of emergency, turned 
out a golden speculation to the bookseller. 

In this way Goldsmith went on "overrunning the 
constable," as he termed it; spending everything in 
advance ; working with an overtasked head and weary 
heart to pay for past pleasures and past extravagance, 
and at the same time incurring new debts, to perpet- 
uate his struggles and darken his future prospects. 
While the excitement of society and the excitement 
of composition conspire to keep up a feverishness of 
the system, he has incurred an unfortunate habit of 
quacking himself with James's powders, a fashionable 
panacea of the day. 

A farce, produced this year by Garrick, and enti- 
tled "The Irish Widow," perpetuates the memory of 
practical jokes played off a year or two previously 
upon the alleged vanity of poor, simple-hearted Gold- 
smith. He was one evening at the house of his friend 
Burke, when he was beset by a tenth 1 muse, an Irish 
1 Who were the niue Muses ? 



292 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

widow and authoress, just arrived from Ireland, full 
of brogue and blunders, and poetic fire and rantipole i 
gentility. She was soliciting subscriptions for her 
poems, and assailed Goldsmith for his patronage; the 
great Goldsmith — her countryman, and of course her 
friend. She overpowered him with eulogiums on his 
own poems, and then read some of her own, with ve- 
hemence of tone and gesture, appealing continually to 
the great Goldsmith to know how he relished them. 

Poor Goldsmith did all that a kind-hearted and gal- 
lant gentleman could do in such a case; he praised 
her poems as far as the stomach of his sense would 
permit — perhaps a little further ; he offered her his 
subscription ; and it was not until she had retired with 
many parting compliments to the great Goldsmith, 
that he pronounced the poetry which had been inflicted 
on him execrable. The whole scene had been a hoax 
got up by Burke for the amusement of his company ; 
and the Irish widow, so admirably performed, had 
been personated by a Mrs. Balfour, a lady of his con- 
nection, of great sprightliness and talent. 

We see nothing in the story to establish the alleged 
vanity of Goldsmith, but we think it tells rather to the 
disadvantage of Burke, — being unwarrantable under 
their relations of friendship, and a species of waggery 
quite beneath his genius. 

Croker, 2 in his notes to Boswell, gives another of 
these practical jokes perpetrated by Burke at the 
expense of Goldsmith's credulity. It was related 
to Croker by Colonel O'Moore, of Cloghan Castle, 
in Ireland, who was a party concerned. The Colonel 

1 Wild, rakish. 

2 John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), an English politician and 
man of letters. His edition of Boswell appeared in 1831. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 293 

and Burke, walking one day through Leicester Square 
on their way to Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with whom 
they were to dine, observed Goldsmith, who was like- 
wise to be a guest, standing and regarding a crowd 
which was staring and shouting at some foreign ladies 
in the window of a hotel. "Observe Goldsmith," 
said Burke to O 'Moore, "and mark what passes be- 
tween us at Sir Joshua's." They passed on and 
reached there before him. Burke received Goldsmith 
with affected reserve and coldness ; being pressed to 
explain the reason, "Really," said he, "I am ashamed 
to keep company with a person who could act as you 
have just done in the Square." Goldsmith protested 
he was ignorant of what was meant. "Why," said 
Burke, " did you not exclaim, as you were looking up 
at those women, what stupid beasts the crowd must 
be for staring with such admiration at those painted 
Jezebels, 1 while a man of your talents passed by un- 
noticed?" "Surely, surely, my dear friend," cried 
Goldsmith, with alarm, "surely I did not say so?" 
"Nay," replied Burke, "if you had not said so, how 
should I have known it? " "That 's true," answered 
Goldsmith, " I am very sorry — it was very foolish : 
I do recollect that something of the hind passed through 
my mind, but 1 did not think I had uttered it." 

It is proper to observe that these jokes were played 
off by Burke before he had attained the full eminence 
of his social position, and that he may have felt privi- 
leged to take liberties with Goldsmith as his country- 
man and college associate. It is evident, however, 
that the peculiarities of the latter, and his guileless 

1 Unscrupulous, impudent women, so called from the charac- 
ter attributed to the Phoenician wife of Ahab, king of Israel, 
whose name was Jezebel. 



294 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery of 
some of his associates; while others more polished, 
though equally perfidious, were on the watch to give 
currency to his bulls and blunders. 

The Stratford jmbilee, 1 in honor of Shakespeare, 
where Boswell had made a fool of himself, was still in 
every one's mind. It was sportively suggested that 
a fete should be held at Lichfield in honor of John- 
son and Garrick, and that the " Beaux Stratagem " 2 
should be played by the members of the Literary 
Club. "Then," exclaimed Goldsmith, "I shall cer- 
tainly play Scrub. I should like of all things to try 
my hand at that character." The unwary speech, 
which any one else might have made without comment, 
has been thought worthy of record as whimsically 
characteristic. Beauclerc was extremely apt to circu- 
late anecdotes at his expense, founded perhaps on some 
trivial incident, but dressed up with the embellish- 
ments of his sarcastic brain. One relates to a vener- 
able dish of peas, served up at Sir Joshua's table, 
which should have been green, but were any other 
color. A wag suggested to Goldsmith in a whisper, 
that they should be sent to Hammersmith, as that was 
the way to turn-em- green (Turnham Green). 3 Gold- 
smith, delighted with the pun, endeavored to repeat it 
at Burke's table, but missed the point. "That is the 
way to make 'em green," said he. Nobody laughed. 

1 On the 6th, 7th, and 8th of September, 1769, the Shake- 
speare jubilee was celebrated with great pomp. The jubilee 
was " invented and conducted by Mr. Garrick at great expense 
and trouble." 

2 Beaux Stratagem was a comedy by Farquhar. The charac- 
ter Scrub, " an amusing valet," was a favorite with Garrick. 

8 Villages in Middlesex, then a few miles from London. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 295 

He perceived he was at fault. "I mean that is the 
road to turn 'em green." A dead pause and a stare; 
"whereupon," adds Beauclerc, "he started up discon- 
certed aud abruptly left the table." This is evidently 
one of Beauclerc 's caricatures. 

On another occasion the poet and Beauclerc were 
seated at the theatre next to Lord Shelburne, 1 the 
minister, whom political writers thought proper to 
nickname Malagrida. "Do you know," said Gold- 
smith to his lordship, in the course of conversation, 
"that I never could conceive why they call you Mala- 
grida, for Malagrida was a very good sort of man." 
This was too good a trip of the tongue for Beauclerc 
to let pass : he serves it up in his next letter to Lord 
Charlemont, 2 as a specimen of a mode of turning 
a thought the wrong way, peculiar to the poet; he 
makes merry over it with his witty and sarcastic com- 
peer, Horace Walpole, who pronounces it "a picture 
of Goldsmith's whole life." Dr. Johnson alone, 
when he hears it bandied about as Goldsmith's last 
blunder, growls forth a friendly defence: "Sir," said 
he, "it was a mere blunder in emphasis. He meant 
to say, I wonder they should use Malagrida as a term 
of reproach." Poor Goldsmith! On such points he 
was ever doomed to be misinterpreted. Rogers, the 

i Sir William Petty (1737-1805), Lord Shelburne, an eminent 
English statesman, once prime minister, and a warm friend of 
the American colonies, was unpopular because of his unpleasant 
temper. The name Malagrida (mal-a-gri'-da) was applied to 
him in contempt, in the Public Advertiser for September 16, 
1767. Beauclerc felt its inappropriateness ; for Father Mala- 
grida had been recently (1761) burnt at the stake at the In- 
quisitorial auto dafe) in Lisbon, for writing heretical books. 

2 James Caulfield (1728-1799), Lord Charlemont, was an 
Irish statesman. 



296 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

poet, meeting in times long subsequent with a sur- 
vivor from those days, asked him what Goldsmith 
really was in conversation. The old conventional 
character was too deeply stamped in the memory of 
the veteran to be effaced. "Sir," replied the old 
wiseacre, "he was a fool. The right word never 
came to him. If you gave him back a bad shilling, 
he 'd say, Why, it 's as good a shilling as ever was 
bom. You know he ought to have said coined. 
Coined, sir, never entered his head. He was a fool, 
sir.'" 

We have so many anecdotes in which Goldsmith's 
simplicity is played upon, that it is quite a treat to 
meet with one in which he is represented playing 
upon the simplicity of others, especially when the 
victim of his joke is the "Great Cham" himself, 
whom all others are disposed to hold so much in awe. 
Goldsmith and Johnson were supping cosily together 
at a tavern in Dean Street, Soho, kept by Jack 
Roberts, a singer at Drury Lane, and a protege of 
Garrick's. Johnson delighted in these gastronomi- 
cal tete-h-tetes, and was expatiating in high good hu- 
mor on a dish of rumps and kidneys, the veins of 
his forehead swelling with the ardor of mastication. 
"These," said he, "are pretty little things; but a 
man must eat a great many of them before he is 
filled." "Aye; but how many of them," asked 
Goldsmith, with affected simplicity, "would reach 
to the moon?" "To the moon! Ah, sir, that, I 
fear, exceeds your calculation." "Not at all, sir; I 
think I could tell." "Pray, then, sir, let us hear." 
"Why, sir, one, if it were long enough/" Johnson 
growled for a time at finding himself caught in 
such a trite schoolboy trap. "Well, sir," cried he 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 297 

at length, "I have deserved it. I should not have 
provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a ques- 
tion." 

Among the many incidents related as illustrative 
of Goldsmith's vanity and envy is one which occurred 
one evening when he was in a drawing-room with a 
party of ladies, and a ballad-singer under the window 
struck up his favorite song of "Sally Salisbury.'' 
'*How miserably this woman sings!" exclaimed he. 
"Pray, Doctor," said the lady of the house, " could 
you do it better? " "Yes, madam, and the company 
shall be judges." The company, of course, prepared 
to be entertained by an absurdity; but their smiles 
were wellnigh turned to tears, for he acquitted him- 
self with a skill and pathos that drew universal ap- 
plause. He had, in fact, a delicate ear for music, 
which had been jarred by the false notes of the bal- 
lad-singer; and there were certain pathetic ballads, 
associated with recollections of his childhood, which 
were sure to touch the springs of his heart. We have 
another story of him, connected with ballad-singing, 
which is still more characteristic. He was one even- 
ing at the house of Sir William Chambers, in Berners 
Street, seated at a whist-table with Sir William, Lady 
Chambers, and Baretti, 1 when all at once he threw 
down his cards, hurried out of the room and into the 
street. He returned in an instant, resumed his seat, 
and the game went on. Sir William, after a little 
hesitation, ventured to ask the cause of his retreat, 
fearing he had been overcome by the heat of the 
room. "Not at all," replied Goldsmith; "but in 

i Baretti (ba-ret -te) (1719-1789), though an Italian, spent 
his last years in London. As a lexicographer, he rendered Dr. 
Johnson some assistance in the work on his dictionary. 



298 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

truth I could not bear to hear that unfortunate woman 
in the street, half singing, half sobbing, for such 
tones could only arise from the extremity of distress : 
her voice grated painfully on my ear and jarred my 
frame, so that I could not rest until I had sent her 
away." It was in fact a poor ballad-singer whose 
cracked voice had been heard by others of the party, 
but without having the same effect on their sensibili- 
ties. It was the reality of his fictitious scene in the 
story of the "Man in Black," wherein he describes 
a woman in rags, with one child in her arms and an- 
other on her back, attempting to sing ballads, but 
with such a mournful voice that it was difficult to 
determine whether she was singing or crying. "A 
wretch," he adds, "who, in the deepest distress, still 
aimed at good humor, was an object my friend was 
by no means capable of withstanding." The "Man 
in Black " gave the poor woman all that he had — a 
bundle of matches. Goldsmith, it is probable, sent 
his ballad-singer away rejoicing, with all the money 
in his pocket. 

Ranelagh was at that time greatly in vogue as a 
place of public entertainment. It was situated near 
Chelsea; the principal room was a rotunda of great 
dimensions, with an orchestra in the centre, and tiers 
of boxes all round. It was a place to which Johnson 
resorted occasionally. "I am a great friend to public 
amusements," said he, "for they keep people from 
vice." 1 Goldsmith was equally a friend to them, 

1 " Alas, sir ! " said Johnson, speaking, when in another mood, 
of grand houses, fine gardens, and splendid places of public 
amusement; " alas, sir! these are only struggles for happiness. 
When I first entered Ranelagh it gave an expansion and gay 
sensation to my mind, such as I never experienced anywhere 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 209 

though perhaps not altogether on such moral grounds. 
He was particularly fond of masquerades, which were 
then exceedingly popular, and got up at Ranelagh 
with great expense and magnificence. Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, who had likewise a taste for such amuse- 
ments, was sometimes his companion; at other times 
he went alone; his peculiarities of person and man- 
ner would soon betray him, whatever might be his 
disguise, and he would be singled out by wags, ac- 
quainted with his foibles, and more successful than 
himself in maintaining their incognito, as a capital 
subject to be played upon. Some, pretending not to 
know him, would decry his writings, and praise those 
of his contemporaries ; others would laud his verses 
to the skies, but purposely misquote and burlesque 
them ; others would annoy him with parodies ; while 
one young lady, whom he was teasing, as he supposed, 
with great success and infinite humor, silenced his 
rather boisterous laughter by quoting his own line 
about "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind." 1 
On one occasion he was absolutely driven out of the 
house by the persevering jokes of a wag. whose com- 
plete disguise gave him no means of retaliation. 

His name appearing in the newspapers among the 
distinguished persons present at one of these amuse- 
ments, his old enemy, Kenrick, immediately ad- 
dressed to him a copy of anonymous verses, to the 
following purport : — 

else. But. as Xerxes wept when he reviewed his immense army, 
and considered that not one of that great multitude would be 
alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my heart to con- 
sider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was 
not afraid to go home and think." 

1 From " The Deserted Village," 1. 122. 



300 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



TO DR. GOLDSMITH; 

ON SEEING HIS NAME IN THE LIST OF MUMMERS AT THE LATE 
MASQUERADE. 

How widely different, Goldsmith, are the ways, 
Of Doctors now, and those of ancient days ! 
Theirs taught the truth in academic shades, 
Ours in lewd hops and midnight masquerades. 
So changed the times! say, philosophic sage, 
Whose genius suits so well this tasteful age, 
Is the Pantheon, 1 late a sink obscene, 
Become the fountain of chaste Hippocrene ? 2 
Or do thy moral numbers quaintly flow, 
Inspired by th' A ganippe of Soho ? 
Do wisdom's sons gorge cates and vermicelli, 
Like beastly Bickerstaffe or bothering Kelly ? 
Or art thou tired of th' undeserved applause, 
Bestowed on bards affecting Virtue's cause ? 
Is this the good that makes the humble vain, 
The good philosophy should not disdain ? 
If so, let pride dissemble all it can, 
A modern sage is still much less than man. 

Goldsmith was keenly sensitive to attacks of the 
kind, and meeting Kenriek at the Chapter Coffee- 
House, called him to sharp account for taking such 
liberty with his name, and calling his morals in ques- 
tion, merely on account of his being seen at a place 
of general resort and amusement. Kenriek shuffled 
and sneaked, protesting that he meant nothing derog- 
atory to his private character. Goldsmith let him 

1 A pleasure house opened in 1771. Its masquerades became 
popular and drew away the patrons of Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and 
Mrs. Comelys. 

2 Hippocrene (hip'-o-kren) and Aganippe (ag-a-nip'-e) were 
fountains near Mount Helicon in Greece, sacred to the Muses. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 301 

know, however, that he was aware of his having more 
than once indulged in attacks of this dastard kind, 
and intimated that another such outrage would be 
followed by personal chastisement. 

Kenrick, having played the craven in his presence, 
avenged himself as soon as he was gone by complain- 
ing of his having made a wanton attack upon him, 
and by making coarse comments upon his writings, 
conversation, and person. 

The scurrilous satire of Kenrick, however unmer- 
ited, may have checked Goldsmith's taste for mas- 
querades. Sir Joshua Reynolds, calling on the poet 
one morning, found him walking about his room in 
somewhat of a reverie, kicking a bundle of clothes 
before him like a football. It proved to be an expen- 
sive masquerade dress, which he said he had been 
fool enough to purchase, and as there was no other 
way of getting the worth of his money, he was trying 
to take it out in exercise. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Invitation to Christmas. — The Spring- Velvet Coat. — The Hay- 
making Wig. — The Mischances of Loo. — The Fair Culprit. 
— A Dance with the Jessamy Bride. 

From the feverish dissipations of town, Goldsmith 
is summoned away to partake of the genial dissipa- 
tions of the country. In the month of December, a 
letter from Mrs. Bunbury invites him down to Bar- 
ton, to pass the Christmas holidays. The letter is 
written in the usual playful vein which marks his in- 
tercourse with this charming family. He is to come 
in his "smart spring-velvet coat," to bring a new wig 



302 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

to dance with the haymakers in, and above all to fol- 
low the advice of herself and her sister (the Jessamy 
Bride), in playing loo. 1 This letter, which plays so 
archly, yet kindly, with some of poor Goldsmith's 
peculiarities, and bespeaks such real ladylike regard 
for him, requires a word or two of annotation. The 
spring-velvet suit alluded to appears to have been 
a gallant adornment (somewhat in the style of the 
famous bloom-colored coat) in which Goldsmith had 
figured in the preceding month of May — the season 
of blossoms; for, on the 21st of the month, we find 
the following entry in the chronicle of Mr. William 
Filby, tailor: To your blue velvet suit, £21 10s. 9d. 
Also, about the same time, a suit of livery and a 
crimson collar for the serving-man. Again we hold 
the Jessamy Bride responsible for this gorgeous splen- 
dor of wardrobe. 

The new wig no doubt is a bag-wig and solitaire, 
still highly the mode, and in which Goldsmith is re- 
presented as figuring when in full dress equipped with 
his sword. 

As to the dancing with the haymakers, we presume 
it alludes to some gambol of the poet, in the course 
of his former visit to Barton; when he ranged the 
fields and lawns a chartered libertine, and tumbled 
into the fish-ponds. 

As to the suggestions about loo, they are in spor- 
tive allusion to the Doctor's mode of playing that 
game in their merry evening parties, — affecting the 
desperate gambler and easy dupe ; running counter to 
all rule; making extravagant ventures; reproaching 
all others with cowardice; dashing at all hazards at 
the pool, and getting himself completely loo'd, to the 

1 A game of cards played by any number of persons up to 
seventeen. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 303 

great amusement of the company. The drift of the 
fair sisters' advice was most probably to tempt him 
on, and then leave him in the lurch. 

With these comments we subjoin Goldsmith's reply 
to Mrs. Bunbury, a fine piece of oft-hand, humorous 
writing, which has but in late years been given to the 
public, and which throws a familiar light on the social 
circle at Barton. 

Madam, — I read your letter with all that allow- 
ance which critical candor could require, but after all 
find so much to object to, and so much to raise my 
indignation, that I cannot help giving it a serious 
answer. I am not so ignorant, madam, as not to see 
there are many sarcasms contained in it, and solecisms 
also. (Solecism is a word that comes from the town 
of Soleis in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, 
and applied as we use the word Kidderminster for 
curtains from a town also of that name — but this is 
learning you have no taste for!) — I say, madam, 
that there are many sarcasms in it, and solecisms 
also. But not to seem an ill-natured critic, I '11 take 
leave to quote your own words, and give you my re- 
marks upon them as they occur. You begin as fol- 
lows : — 

" I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here, 
And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear, 
To open our ball the first day of the year." 

Pray, madam, where did you ever find the epithet 
"good" applied to the title of doctor? Had you 
called me "learned doctor," or "grave doctor," or 
"noble doctor," it might be allowable, because they 
belong to the profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, 



304 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

you talk of my "spring -velvet coat," and advise me 
to wear it the first day in the year, that is, in the 
middle of winter ! — a spring- velvet coat in the mid- 
dle of winter ! ! ! That would be a solecism indeed ! 
and yet to increase the inconsistency, in another part 
of your letter you call me a beau. Now, on one side 
or other, you must be wrong. If I am a beau I can 
never think of wearing a spring- velvet in winter ; and 
if I am not a beau, why then, that explains itself. 
But let me go on to your two next strange lines : — 

" And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay, 
To dance with the girls that are makers of hay." 

The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you 
yourself seem sensible of: you say your sister will 
laugh ; and so indeed she well may ! The Latins 
have an expression for a contemptuous kind of laugh- 
ter, "naso contemnere adunco;" that is, to laugh 
with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you in the 
manner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I 
come to the most extraordinary of all extraordinary 
propositions, — which is, to take your and your sis- 
ter's advice in playing at loo. The presumption of 
the offer raises my indignation beyond the bounds of 
prose; it inspires me at once with verse and resent- 
ment. I take advice? and from whom? You shall 
hear. 

" First, let me suppose, what may shortly be true, 
The company set, and the word to be loo: 
All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure, 
And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the centre. 
Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn 
At never once finding a visit from Pam. 1 

1 Henry Temple (1739-1802), Viscount Palmerston, was very 
popular at this time with the friends of the Literary Club. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 305 

I lay down my stake, apparently cool, 

While the harpies about me all pocket the pool. 

I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly, 

I wish all my friends may be bolder than I: 

Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim 

By losing their money to venture at fame. 

*T is in vain that at niggardly caution I scold, 

'T is in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold : 

All play their own way, and they think me an ass, . . . 

* What does Mrs. Bunbury ? ' . . . ■ I, sir ? I pass.' 

* Pray what does Miss Horneck ? take courage, come do.' 
' Who, I ? — let me see, sir, why I must pass too.' 

Mr. Bunbury frets, and I fret like the devil, 

To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil. 

Yet still I sit snug, and continue to sigh on, 

Till, made by my losses as bold as a lion, 

I venture at all, while my avarice regards 

The whole pool as my own. . . . ' Come, give me five cards.* 

* Well done ! ' cry the ladies ; ' ah, Doctor, that 's good ! 
The pool 's very rich, . . . ah ! the Doctor is loo'd ! ' 
Thus foil'd in my courage, on all sides perplext, 

I ask for advice from the lady that 's next : 

* Pray, ma'am, be so good as to give your advice ; 
Don't you think the best way is to venture for 't twice ?' 

* I advise,' cries the lady, ' to try it, I own. . . . 

Ah ! the Doctor is loo'd I Come, Doctor, put down.' 

Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager, 

And so bold, and so bold, I 'm at last a bold beggar. 

Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you 're skill'd in, 

Whether crimes such as yours should not come before Fielding: 

For giving advice that is not worth a straw, 

May well be call'd picking of pockets in law; 

And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye, 

Is, by quinto Elizabeth, 1 Death without Clergy. 

What justice, when both to the Old Bailey brought ! 

By the gods, I '11 enjoy it, tho' 't is but in thought ! 

Both are placed at the bar, with all proper decorum, 

With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em; 

1 This is a lawyer's way of referring to a certain law enacted 
in Queen Elizabeth's time. 



306 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Both cover their faces with mobs and all that, 

But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. 

When uncover'd a buzz of inquiry runs round, 

* Pray what are their crimes ?'...' They 've been pilfering 

found.' 

* But pray, who have they pilf er'd ? . . . ' A doctor, I hear.' 
' What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near f * 

* The same.' . . . ' What a pity ! how does it surprise one, 
Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on ! ' 

Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering, 

To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing. 

First Sir Charles advances with phrases well-strung, 

' Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.' 

4 The younger the worse,' I return him again, 

' It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.' 

k But then they 're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.' 

* What signifies handsome, when people are thieves ? ' 
1 But where is your justice ? their cases are hard.' 

1 What signifies justice ? I want the reward. 

"' There 's the parish of Edmonton offers forty 
pounds; there 's the parish of St. Leonard Shoreditch 
offers forty pounds ; there 's the parish of Tyburn, 
from the Hog-in-the-pound to St. Giles's watch- 
house, offers forty pounds, — I shall have all that if 
I convict them ! ' — 

" * But consider their case, ... it may yet be your own ! 
And see how they kneel ! Is your heart made of stone ? ' 
This moves : ... so at last I agree to relent, 
For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent." 

I challenge you all to answer this : I tell you, you 
cannot. It cuts deep. But now for the rest of the 
letter: and next — but I want room — so I believe 
I shall battle the rest out at Barton some day next 
week. I don't value you all! O. G. 

We regret that we have no record of this Christ- 
mas visit to Barton; that the poet had no Boswell to 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 307 

follow at his heels, and take note of all his sayings 
and doings. We can only picture him in our minds, 
casting off all care; enacting the lord of misrule; 1 
presiding at the Christmas revels ; providing all kinds 
of merriment; keeping the card -table in an uproar, 
and finally opening the ball on the first day of the 
year in his spring-velvet suit, with the Jessamy Bride 
for a partner. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Theatrical Delays. — Negotiations with Colman. — Letter to 
Garrick. — Croaking of the Manager — Naming of the Play, 
" She Stoops to Conquer." — Foote's Primitive Puppet-Show, 
"Piety on Pattens." — First Performance of the Comedy. — 
Agitation of the Author. — Success. — Colman squibbed out 
of Town. 

The gay life depicted in the last two chapters, 
while it kept Goldsmith in a state of continual excite- 
ment, aggravated the malady which was impairing 
his constitution; yet his increasing perplexities in 
money-matters drove him to the dissipation of society 
as a relief from solitary care. The delays of the the- 
atre added to those perplexities. He had long since 
finished his new comedy, yet the year 1772 passed 
away without his being able to get it on the stage. 
No one, uninitiated in the interior of a theatre, that 
little world of traps and trickery, can have any idea 
of the obstacles and perplexities multiplied in the 
way of the most eminent and successful author by 

1 In old times a person chosen to direct the sports and revels 
of the Christmas season. His reign lasted from All-Hallow Eve 
to Candlemas. 



308 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the mismanagement of managers, the jealousies and 
intrigues of rival authors, and the fantastic and im- 
pertinent caprices of actors. A long and baffling 
negotiation was carried on between Goldsmith and 
Colman, the manager of Covent Garden, who retained 
the play in his hands until the middle of January 
(1773) without coming to a decision. The theatrical 
season was rapidly passing away, and Goldsmith's 
pecuniary difficulties were augmenting and pressing 
on him. We may judge of his anxiety by the follow- 
ing letter : — 

To George Colman, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — I entreat you '11 relieve me from that 
state of suspense in which I have been kept for a long 
time. Whatever objections you have made or shall 
make to my play, I will endeavor to remove and not 
argue about them. To bring in any new judges 
either of its merits or faults I can never submit to. 
Upon a former occasion, when my other play was 
before Mr. Garrick, he offered to bring me before 
Mr. Whitehead's tribunal, but I refused the proposal 
with indignation: I hope I shall not experience as 
harsh treatment from you as from him. I have, as 
you know, a large sum of money to make up shortly; 
by accepting my play, I can readily satisfy my cred- 
itor that way ; at any rate, I must look about to some 
certainty to be prepared. For God's sake take the 
play, and let us make the best of it, and let me have 
the same measure, at least, which you have given as 
bad plays as mine. 

I am your friend and servant, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 309 

Colman returned the manuscript with the blank 
sides of the leaves scored with disparaging comments, 
and suggested alterations, but with the intimation that 
the faith of the theatre should be kept, and the play 
acted notwithstanding. Goldsmith submitted the 
criticisms to some of his friends, who pronounced 
them trivial, unfair, and contemptible, and intimated 
that Colman, being a dramatic writer himself, might 
be acuated by jealousy. The play was then sent, with 
Colman 's comments written on it, to Garrick; but 
he had scarce sent it when Johnson interfered, repre- 
sented the evil that might result from an apparent 
rejection of it by Covent Garden, and undertook to go 
forthwith to Colman, and have a talk with him on 
the subject. Goldsmith, therefore, penned the fol- 
lowing note to Garrick : — 

Dear Sir, — I ask many pardons for the trouble 
I gave you yesterday. Upon more mature delibera- 
tion, and the advice of a sensible friend, I began to 
think it indelicate in me to throw upon you the odium 
of confirming Mr. Colman 's sentence. I therefore 
request you will send my play back by my servant ; 
for having been assured of having it acted at the 
other house, though I confess yours in every respect 
more to my wish, yet it would be folly in me to forego 
an advantage which lies in my power of appealing from 
Mr. Colman's opinion to the judgment of the town. 
I entreat, if not too late, you will keep this affair a 
secret for some time. 

I am, dear sir, your very humble servant, 

Oliver Goldsmith 

The negotiation of Johnson with the manager of 
Covent Garden was effective. "Colman," he says, 



310 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" was prevailed on at last, by much solicitation, nay, 
a kind of force," to bring forward the comedy. Still 
the manager was ungenerous, or at least indiscreet 
enough to express his opinion that it would not reach 
a second representation. The plot, he said, was bad, 
and the interest not sustained; "it dwindled, and 
dwindled, and at last went out like the snuff of a 
candle." The effect of his croaking was soon appar- 
ent within the walls of the theatre. Two of the most 
popular actors, Woodward 1 and Gentleman Smith, 2 
to whom the parts of Tony Lumpkin and young 
Marlow were assigned, refused to act them; one of 
them alleging, in excuse, the evil predictions of the 
manager. Goldsmith was advised to postpone the 
performance of his play until he could get these im- 
portant parts well supplied. "No," said he, "I would 
sooner that my play were damned by bad players 
than merely saved by good acting." 

Quick 3 was substituted for Woodward in Tony 
Lumpkin, and Lee Lewis, 4 the harlequin of the the- 
atre, for Gentleman Smith in young Marlow; and 
both did justice to their parts. 

Great interest was taken by Goldsmith's friends in 
the success of his piece. The rehearsals were at- 
tended by Johnson, Cradock, Murphy, Eeynolds and 
his sister, and the whole Horneck connection, includ- 

1 Henry Woodward (1717-1777), a celebrated comedian, was 
famous as Petruchio, Touchstone, and Captain Absolute. 

2 William Smith (1730-1819), a noted actor, was called 
" Gentleman " Smith because of his polished manners. 

8 John Quick (1748-1831) had been playing clown, rustic, 
etc., but on March 14, 1773, he scored his great triumph as the 
" original Tony Lumkin " in Goldsmith's drama. 

4 Charles Lee Lewis (1740-1803) became famous as a come- 
dian. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 311 

ing, of course, the Jessamy Bride, whose presence 
may have contributed to flutter the anxious heart of 
the author. The rehearsals went off with great ap- 
plause ; but that Colman attributed to the partiality 
of friends. He continued to croak, and refused to 
risk any expense in new scenery or dresses on a play 
which he was sure would prove a failure. 

The time was at hand for the first representation, 
and as yet the comedy was without a title. "We are 
all in labor for a name for Goldy's play," said John- 
son, who, as usual, took a kind of fatherly protecting 
interest in poor Goldsmith's affairs. "The Old House 
a New Inn " was thought of for a time, but still did 
not please. Sir Joshua Reynolds proposed "The 
Belle's Stratagem," — an elegant title, but not con- 
sidered applicable, the perplexities of the comedy 
being produced by the mistakes of the hero, not the 
stratagem of the heroine. The name was afterwards 
adopted by Mrs. Cowley 1 for one of her comedies. 
"The Mistakes of a Night " was the title at length 
fixed upon, to which Goldsmith prefixed the words, 
"She Stoops to Conquer." 

The evil bodings of Colman still continued: they 
were even communicated in the box office to the ser- 
vant of the Duke of Gloucester, who was sent to en- 
gage a box. Never did the play of a popular writer 
struggle into existence through more difficulties. 

In the meantime Foote's "primitive puppet-show," 
entitled "The Handsome Housemaid, or, Piety on 
Pattens," had been brought out at the Haymarket on 
the 15th of February. All the world, fashionable 
and unfashionable, had crowded to the theatre. The 

1 Mrs. Hannah Parkhouse Cowley (1743-1809) was a con- 
temporary dramatist. 



312 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

street was thronged with equipages, — the doors were 
stormed by the mob. The burlesque was completely 
successful, and sentimental comedy received its qui- 
etus. Even Garrick, who had recently befriended it, 
now gave it a kick, as he saw it going down hill, and 
sent Goldsmith a humorous prologue to help his com- 
edy of the opposite school. Garrick and Goldsmith, 
however, were now on very cordial terms, to which 
the social meetings in the circle of the Hornecks and 
Bunburys may have contributed. 

On the 15th of March the new comedy was to be 
performed. Those who had stood up for its merits, 
and been irritated and disgusted by the treatment it 
had received from the manager, determined to muster 
their forces, and aid in giving it a good launch upon 
the town. The particulars of this confederation, and 
of its triumphant success, are amusingly told by Cum- 
berland in his memoirs. 

''We were not over sanguine of success, but per- 
fectly determined to struggle hard for our author. 
We accordingly assembled our strength at the Shake- 
speare Tavern, in a considerable body, for an early 
dinner, where Samuel Johnson took the chair at the 
head of a long table, and was the life and soul of the 
corps; the poet took post silently by his side, with 
the Burkes, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Caleb 
Whitefoord, and a phalanx of North British pre- 
determined applauders, under the banner of Major 
Mills, — all good men and true. Our illustrious pre- 
sident was in inimitable glee; and poor Goldsmith 
that day took all his raillery as patiently and compla- 
cently as my friend Boswell would have done any day 
or every day of his life. In the meantime we did not 
forget our duty ; and though we had a better comedy 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 313 

going, in which Johnson was chief actor, we betook 
ourselves in good time to our separate and allotted 
posts, and waited the awful drawing up of the cur- 
tain. As our stations were preconcerted, so were our 
signals for plaudits arranged and determined upon 
in a manner that gave every one his cue where to look 
for them, and how to follow them up. 

"We had among us a very worthy and efficient 
member, long since lost to his friends and the world 
at large, Adam Drummond, of amiable memory, who 
was gifted by nature with the most sonorous, and at 
the same time the most contagious laugh that ever 
echoed from the human lungs. The neighing of the 
horse of the son of Hystaspes 1 was a whisper to it ; 
the whole thunder of the theatre could not drown it. 
This kind and ingenious friend fairly forewarned us 
that he knew no more when to give his fire than the 
cannon did that was planted on a battery. He de- 
sired, therefore, to have a flapper 2 at his elbow, and 
I had the honor to be deputed to that office. I 
planted him in an upper box, pretty nearly over the 
stage, in full view of the pit and galleries, and per- 

1 The son of Hystaspes was Darius I. of Persia. The right 
of succession to the throne rested among seven princes.. It was 
agreed, according to Rollin, that on a given morning the seven 
were to ride to a certain place in the suburb of the capital city. 
The one whose horse was first to neigh was to have the throne. 
Darius's groom trained his horse, so that it had no sooner 
reached the place than it gave a loud and echoing neigh. 

2 In Laputa, Gulliver found a class of dreamy philosophers 
who could neither speak " nor attend to the discourses of others, 
without being roused." These men were, therefore, accompa- 
nied by servants who carried bladders containing a few dried 
peas. To arouse their masters they would smite them on the 
mouth or ear with the bladders. They were called " flappers." 
See Swift's Gulliver's Travels. 



314 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

fectly well situated to give the echo all its play 
through the hollows and recesses of the theatre. The 
success of our manoeuvre was complete. All eyes 
were upon Johnson, who sat in a front row of a side 
box; and when he laughed, everybody thought them- 
selves warranted to roar. In the meantime, my 
friend followed signals with a rattle so irresistibly 
comic, that, when he had repeated it several times, 
the attention of the spectators was so engrossed by 
his person and performances, that the progress of the 
play seemed likely to become a secondary object, and 
I found it prudent to insinuate to him that he might 
halt his music without any prejudice to the author; 
but alas ! it was now too late to rein him in ; he had 
laughed upon my signal where he found no joke, and 
now, unluckily, he fancied that he found a joke in 
almost everything that was said ; so that nothing in 
nature could be more mal-apropos * than some of his 
bursts every now and then were. These were dan- 
gerous moments, for the pit began to take umbrage; 
but we carried our point through, and triumphed not 
only over Colman's judgment, but our own." 

Much of this statement has been condemned as 
exaggerated or discolored. Cumberland's memoirs 
have generally been characterized as partaking of 
romance, and in the present instance he had particu- 
lar motives for tampering with the truth. He was a 
dramatic writer himself, jealous of the success of a 
rival, and anxious to have it attributed to the private 
management of friends. According to various ac- 
counts, public and private, such management was 
unnecessary, for the piece was "received throughout 
with the greatest acclamations." 

1 Mal-apropos (mal-ap-ro-po') = out of place. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 315 

Goldsmith, in the present instance, had not dared, 
as on a former occasion, to be present at the first per- 
formance. He had been so overcome by his appre- 
hensions that, at the preparatory dinner, he could 
hardly utter a word, and was so choked that he could 
not swallow a mouthful. When his friends trooped 
to the theatre, he stole away to St. James's Park: 
there he was found by a friend, between seven and 
eight o'clock, wandering up and down the Mall like 
a troubled spirit. With difficulty he was persuaded 
to go to the theatre, where his presence might be 
important should any alteration be necessary. He 
arrived at the opening of the fifth act, and made his 
way behind the scenes. Just as he entered there was 
a slight hiss at the improbability of Tony Lumpkin's 
trick on his mother, in persuading her she was forty 
miles off, on Crackskull Common, though she had 
been trundled about on her own grounds. "What 's 
that? what 's that! " cried Goldsmith to the manager, 
in great agitation. "Pshaw! Doctor," replied Col- 
man, sarcastically, "don't be frightened at a squib, 
when we 've been sitting these two hours on a barrel 
of gunpowder! " Though of a most forgiving nature, 
Goldsmith did not easily forget this ungracious and 
ill-timed sally. 

If Colman was indeed actuated by the paltry mo- 
tives ascribed to him in his treatment of this play, 
he was most amply punished by its success, and by 
the taunts, epigrams, and censures levelled at him 
through the press, in which his false prophecies were 
jeered at, his critical judgment called in question, 
and he was openly taxed with literary jealousy. So 
galling and unremitting was the fire, that he at length 
wrote to Goldsmith, entreating him "to take him off 



316 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the rack of the newspapers;" in the meantime, to 
escape the laugh that was raised about him in the 
theatrical world of London, he took refuge in Bath 
during the triumphant career of the comedy. 

The following is one of the many squibs which as- 
sailed the ears of the manager. 



TO GEORGE COLMAN, ESQ., 

ON THE SUCCESS OF DR. GOLDSMITH'S NEW COMEDY. 

Come, Coley, doff these mourning weeds, 

Nor thus with jokes be flamm'd; 
Tho' Goldsmith's present play succeeds, 

His next may still be damn'd. 

As this has 'scaped without a fall, 

To sink his next prepare ; 
New actors hire from Wapping l Wall, 

And dresses from Rag Fair. 

For scenes let tatter'd blankets fly, 

The prologue Kelly write ; 
Then swear again the piece must die 

Before the author's night. 

Should these tricks fail, the lucky elf 

To bring to lasting shame, 
E'en write the best you can yourself, 

And print it in his name. 

The solitary hiss which had startled Goldsmith, 
was ascribed by some of the newspaper scribblers to 
Cumberland himself, who was "manifestly miserable " 
at the delight of the audience, or to Ossian Macpher- 
son, who was hostile to the whole Johnson clique, or 

1 A section of London along the north bank of the Thames. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 317 

to Goldsmith's dramatic rival, Kelly. The following 
is one of the epigrams which appeared : — 

" At Dr. Goldsmith's merry play, 
All the spectators laugh, they say ; 
The assertion, sir, I must deny, 
For Cumberland and Kelly cry. 

Ride si sapis." 1 

Another, addressed to Goldsmith, alludes to Kelly's 
early apprenticeship to stay-making : — 

" If Kelly finds fault with the shape of your muse, 
And thinks that too loosely it plays, 
He surely, dear Doctor, will never refuse 
To make it a new pair of stays I " 

Cradock had returned to the country before the 
production of the play; the following letter, written 
just after the performance, gives an additional picture 
of the thorns which beset an author in the path of 
theatrical literature : — 

My dear Sir, — The play has met with a success 
much beyond your expectations or mine. I thank 
you sincerely for your epilogue, which, however, 
could not be used, but with your permission shall be 
printed. The story in short is this. Murphy sent 
me rather the outline of an epilogue than an epilogue, 
which was to be sung by Miss Catley, 2 and which she 
approved; Mrs. Bulkley, hearing this, insisted on 
throwing up her part (Miss Hardcastle) unless, ac- 
cording to the custom of the theatre, she were per- 
mitted to speak the epilogue. In this embarrassment 
I thought of making a quarrelling epilogue between 

1 Laugh if you know how. 

2 Ann Catley (1745-1789), a vocalist celebrated for beauty of 
face and of voice. 



318 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Catley and her, debating who should speak the epi- 
logue; but then Miss Catley refused after I had 
taken the trouble of drawing it out. I was then at 
a loss indeed; an epilogue was to be made, and for 
none but Mrs. Bulkley. I made one, and Colman 
thought it too bad to be spoken ; I was obliged, there- 
fore, to try a fourth time, and I made a very mawkish 
thing, as you '11 shortly see. Such is the history of 
my stage adventures, and which I have at last done 
with. I cannot help saying that I am very sick of 
the stage; and though I believe I shall get three tol- 
erable benefits, yet I shall, on the whole, be a loser, 
even in a pecuniary light; my ease and comfort I 
certainly lost while it was in agitation. 

I am, my dear Cradock, your obliged and obedient 
servant, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

P. S. Present my most humble respects to Mrs. 
Cradock. 

Johnson, who had taken such a conspicuous part 
in promoting the interest of poor "Goldy," was tri- 
umphant at the success of the piece. "I know of no 
comedy for many years," said he, "that has so much 
exhilarated an audience, — that has answered so 
much the great end of comedy, making an audience 
merry." 

Goldsmith was happy, also, in gleaning applause 
from less authoritative sources. Northcote, 1 the 
painter, then a youthful pupil of Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, and Ralph, Sir Joshua's confidential man, had 
taken their stations in the gallery to lead the applause 

1 James Northcote (1746-1831) became a celebrated portrait 
aud landscape painter and an author. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 319 

in that quarter. Goldsmith asked Northcote's opin- 
ion of the play. The youth modestly declared he 
could not presume to judge on such matters. "Did it 
make you laugh? " "Oh, exceedingly! " " That is 
all I require," replied Goldsmith; and rewarded him 
for his criticism by box tickets for his first benefit 
night. 

The comedy was immediately put to press, and 
dedicated to Johnson in the following grateful and 
affectionate terms : — 

"In ascribing this slight performance to you, I do 
not mean so much to compliment you as myself. It- 
may do me some honor to inform the public that I 
have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may 
serve the interests of mankind also to inform them 
that the greatest wit may be found in a character, 
without impairing the most unaffected piety." 

The copyright was transferred to Mr. Newbery, 
according to agreement, whose profits on the sale of 
the work far exceeded the debts for which the author 
in his perplexities had preengaged it. The sum which 
accrued to Goldsmith from his benefit nights afforded 
but a slight palliation of his pecuniary difficulties. 
His friends, while they exulted in his success, little 
knew of his continually increasing embarrassments, 
and of the anxiety of mind which kept tasking his 
pen while it impaired the ease and freedom of spirit 
necessary to felicitous composition. 



320 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

CHAPTER XXXVHI. 

A Newspaper attack. — The Evans Affray. — Johnson's 
Comment. 

The triumphant success of "She Stoops to Con- 
quer" brought forth, of course, those carpings and 
cavillings of underling scribblers, which are the thorns 
and briers in the path of successful authors. Gold- 
smith, though easily nettled by attacks of the kind, 
was at present too well satisfied with the reception of 
his comedy to heed them ; but the following anony- 
mous letter, which appeared in a public paper, was 
not to be taken with equal equanimity : — 

{For the London Packet.) 
TO DR. GOLDSMITH 

Vous vous noyez par vanite. 1 

Sik, — The happy knack which you have learned 
of puffing your own compositions provokes me to 
come forth. You have not been the editor of news- 
papers and magazines not to discover the trick of 
literary humbug ; but the gauze is so thin that the 
very foolish part of the world see through it, and 
discover the doctor's monkey-face and cloven foot. 
Your poetic vanity is as unpardonable as your per- 
sonal. Would man believe it, and will woman bear 
it, to be told that for hours the great Goldsmith will 
stand surveying his grotesque orang-outang's figure 
in a pier-glass ? 2 Was but the lovely H — k as much 

1 You drown yourself in vanity. 

2 " A mirror used in an apartment to cover the whole or a 
large part of the wall between two openings." — Century Diction- 
ary. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 321 

enamored, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in 
vain. But your vanity is preposterous. How will 
this same bard of Bedlam 1 ring the changes in the 
praise of Goldy ! But what has he to be either proud 
or vain of? "The Traveller" is a flimsy poem, built 
upon false principles — principles diametrically oppo- 
site to liberty. What is "The Good-Natured Man" 
but a poor, water-gruel dramatic dose? What is 
"The Deserted Village" but a pretty poem of easy 
numbers, without fancy, dignity, genius, or fire? 
And, pray, what may be the last speaking pantomime, 
so praised by the Doctor himself, but an incoherent 
piece of stuff, the figure of a woman with a fish's 
tail, without plot, incident, or intrigue? We are 
made to laugh at stale, dull jokes, wherein we mistake 
pleasantry for wit, and grimace for humor ; wherein 
every scene is unnatural and inconsistent with the 
rules, the laws of nature and of the drama ; viz. : two 
gentlemen come to a man of fortune's house, eat, 
drink, etc., and take it for an inn. The one is in- 
tended as a lover for the daughter : he talks with her 
for some hours; and, when he sees her again in a 
different dress, he treats her as a bar-girl, and swears 
she squinted. He abuses the master of the house, 
and threatens to kick him out of his own doors. The 
squire, whom we are told is to be a fool, proves to be 
the most sensible being of the piece; and he makes 
out a whole act by bidding his mother lie close behind 
a bush, persuading her that his father, her own hus- 
band, is a highwayman, and that he has come to cut 
their throats ; and, to give his cousin an opportunity 

2 Bard of Bedlam = mad poet. Bedlam was a name applied 
to the hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, Loudon, after it was 
used as a lunatic asylum. 



322 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

to go off, he drives his mother over hedges, ditches, 
and through ponds. There is not, sweet, sucking 
Johnson, a natural stroke in the whole play but the 
young fellow's giving the stolen jewels to the mother, 
supposing her to be the landlady. That Mr. Colman 
did no justice to this piece, I honestly allow; that he 
told all his friends it would be damned, I positively 
aver; and, from such ungenerous insinuations, with- 
out a dramatic merit, it rose to public notice, and it 
is now the ton to go and see it, though I never saw 
a person that either liked it or approved it, any more 
than the absurd plot of Home's 1 tragedy of " Alonzo." 
Mr. Goldsmith, correct your arrogance, reduce your 
vanity, and endeavor to believe, as a man, you are of 
the .plainest sort, — and as an author, but a mortal 
piece of mediocrity. 

" Brise le miroir infidele 
Qui vous cache la verite*." 2 

Tom Tickle. 

It would be difficult to devise a letter more calcu- 
lated to wound the peculiar sensibilities of Goldsmith. 
The attacks upon him as an author, though annoying 
enough, he could have tolerated ; but then the allusion 
to his "grotesque" person, to his studious attempts 
to adorn it, and, above all, to his being an unsuc- 
cessful admirer of the lovely H — k (the Jessamy 
Bride), struck rudely upon the most sensitive part of 
his highly sensitive nature. The paragraph, it is 
said, was first pointed out to him by an officious 
friend, an Irishman, who told him he was bound in 

1 John Home (1722-1808), Scottish clergyman and dramatist. 

2 Break the false mirror which conceals from you the truth. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 323 

honor to resent it; but he needed no such prompting. 
He was in a high state of excitement and indignation, 
and. accompanied by his friend, who is said to have 
been a Captain Higgins, of the marines, he repaired 
to Paternoster Row, to the shop of Evans, the pub- 
lisher, whom he supposed to be the editor of the 
paper. Evans was summoned by his shopman from 
an adjoining room. Goldsmith announced his name. 
"I have called," added he, "in consequence of a 
scurrilous attack made upon me, and an unwarrant- 
able liberty taken with the name of a young lady. 
As for myself. I care little ; but her name must not 
be sported with." 

Evans professed utter ignorance of the matter, and 
said he would speak to the editor. He stooped to 
examine a file of the paper, in search of the offensive 
article? whereupon Goldsmith's friend gave him a 
signal, that now was a favorable moment for the ex- 
ercise of his cane. The hint was taken as quick as 
given, and the cane was vigorously applied to the 
back of the stooping publisher. The latter rallied in 
an instant, and, being a stout, high-blooded Welsh- 
man, returned the blows with interest. A lamp 
hanging overhead was broken, and sent down a 
shower of oil upon the combatants; but the battle 
raged with unceasing fury. The shopman ran off for 
a constable; but Dr. Kenrick, who happened to be 
in the adjacent room, sallied forth, interfered be- 
tween the combatants, and put an end to the affray. 
He conducted Goldsmith to a coach, in exceedingly 
battered and tattered plight, and accompanied him 
home, soothing him with much mock commiseration, 
though he was generally suspected, and on good 
grounds, to be the author of the libeL 



324 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Evans immediately instituted a suit against Gold- 
smith for an assault, but was ultimately prevailed 
upon to compromise the matter, the poet contributing 
fifty pounds to the Welsh charity. 

Newspapers made themselves, as may well be sup- 
posed, exceedingly merry with the combat. Some 
censured him severely for invading the sanctity of a 
man's own house; others accused him of having, in 
his former capacity of editor of a magazine, been 
guilty of the very offences that he now resented in 
others. This drew from him the following vindica- 
tion. 

TO THE PUBLIC. 

Lest it should be supposed that I have been willing 
to correct in others an abuse of which I have been 
guilty myself, I beg leave to declare, that, in all my 
life, I never wrote or dictated a single paragraph, 
letter, or essay in a newspaper except a few moral 
essays under the character of a Chinese, about ten 
years ago, in the " Ledger," and a letter, to which I 
signed my name, in the "St. James's Chronicle." 
If the liberty of the press, therefore, has been abused, 
I have had no hand in it. 

I have always considered the press as the protector 
of our freedom, as a watchful guardian, capable of 
uniting the weak against the encroachments of power. 
What concerns the public most properly admits of a 
public discussion. But of late the press has turned 
from defending public interest to making inroads 
upon private life ; from combating the strong to over- 
whelming the feeble. No condition is now too ob- 
scure for its abuse, and the protector has become the 
tyrant of the people. In this manner the freedom 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 325 

of the press is beginning to sow the seeds of its own 
dissolution ; the great must oppose it from principle, 
and the weak from fear; till at last every rank of 
mankind shall be found to give up its benefits, con- 
tent with security from insults. 

How to put a stop to this licentiousness, by which 
all are indiscriminately abused, and by which vice 
consequently escapes in the general censure. I am 
unable to tell; all I could wish is, that, as the law 
gives us no protection against the injury, so it should 
give calumniators no shelter after having provoked 
correction. The insults which we receive before the 
public, by being more open, are the more distress- 
ing; by treating them with silent contempt we do 
not pay a sufficient deference to the opinion of the 
world. By recurring to legal redress we too often 
expose the weakness of the law. which only serves to 
increase our mortification by failing to relieve us. In 
short, every man should singly consider himself as 
the guardian of the liberty of the press, and. as far 
as his influence can extend, should endeavor to pre- 
vent its licentiousness becoming at last the grave of 
its freedom. 

Oliver Golds^hth. 

Boswell. who had just arrived in town, met with 
this article in a newspaper which he found at Dr. 
Johnson's. The Doctor was from home at the time. 
and Bozzy and Mrs. Williams, in a critical conference 
over the letter, determined from the style that it must 
have been written by the lexicogTaphtr himself. The 
latter on his return soon undeceived them. "Sir,"' 
said he to Boswell, "Goldsmith would no more have 
asked me to have wrote such a thing as that for him 



326 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

than he would have asked me to feed him with a 
spoon, or do anything else that denoted his imbecility. 
Sir, had he shown it to any one friend, he would not 
have been allowed to publish it. He has, indeed, 
done it very well ; but it is a foolish thing well done. 
I suppose he has been so much elated with the success 
of his new comedy, that he has thought everything 
that concerned him must be of importance to the 
public. " 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Boswell in Holy- Week. — Dinner at Oglethorpe 's. — Dinner at 
Paoli's. — The Policy of Truth. — Goldsmith affects Independ- 
ence of Royalty. — Paoli's Compliment. — Johnson's Eulo- 
gium on the Fiddle. — Question about Suicide. — Boswell's 
Subserviency. 

The return of Boswell to town to his task of noting 
down the conversations of Johnson, enables us to glean 
from his journal some scanty notices of Goldsmith. 
It was now Holy-Week, a time during which John- 
son was particularly solemn in his manner and strict 
in his devotions. Boswell, who was the imitator of 
the great moralist in everything, assumed, of course, 
an extra devoutness on the present occasion. "He 
had an odd mock solemnity of tone and manner," said 
Miss Burney (afterwards Madame D'Arblay), "which 
he had acquired from constantly thinking, and imi- 
tating Dr. Johnson." It would seem that he un- 
dertook to deal out some second-hand homilies, a 
la Johnson, for the edification of Goldsmith during 
Holy -Week. The poet, whatever might be his reli- 
gious feeling, had no disposition to be schooled by so 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 327 

shallow an apostle. "Sir," said he in reply, "as I 
take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from 
the tailor, so I take my religion from the priest." 

Boswell treasured up the reply in his memory or 
his memorandum-book. A few days afterwards, the 
9th of April, he kept Good Friday with Dr. Johnson, 
in orthodox style; breakfasted with him on tea and 
cross-buns; went to church with him morning and 
evening; fasted in the interval, and read with him 
in the Greek Testament: then, in the piety of his 
heart, complained of the sore rebuff he had met with 
in the course of his religious exhortations to the 
poet, and lamented that the latter should indulge in 
"this loose way of talking." "Sir," replied John- 
son, " Goldsmith knows nothing — he has made up 
his mind about nothing." 

This reply seems to have gratified the lurking jeal- 
ousy of Boswell, and he has recorded it in his journal. 
Johnson, however, with respect to Goldsmith, and 
indeed with respect to everybody else, blew hot as 
well as cold, according to the humor he was in. Bos- 
well, who was astonished and piqued at the continu- 
ally increasing celebrity of the poet, observed some 
time after to Johnson, in a tone of surprise, that Gold- 
smith had acquired more fame than all the officers of 
the last war who were not generals. "Why, sir," 
answered Johnson, his old feeling of good-will work- 
ing uppermost, "you will find ten thousand fit to do 
what they did, before you find one to do what Gold- 
smith has done. You must consider that a thing is 
valued according to its rarity. A pebble that paves 
the street is in itself more useful than the diamond 
upon a lady's finger." 

On the 13th of April we find Goldsmith and John- 



328 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

son at the table of old General Oglethorpe, discussing 
the question of the degeneracy of the human race. 
Goldsmith asserts the fact, and attributes it to the 
influence of luxury. Johnson denies the fact, and 
observes that, even admitting it, luxury could not be 
the cause. It reached but a small proportion of the 
human race. Soldiers, on sixpence a day, could not 
indulge in luxuries; the poor and laboring classes, 
forming the great mass of mankind, were out of its 
sphere. Wherever it could reach them, it strength- 
ened them and rendered them prolific. The conver- 
sation was not of particular force or point as reported 
by Boswell; the dinner-party was a very small one, 
in which there was no provocation to intellectual dis- 
play. 

After dinner they took tea with the ladies, where 
we find poor Goldsmith happy and at home, singing 
Tony Lumpkin's song of the "Three Jolly Pigeons," 
and another, called the "Humors of Ballamaguery," 
to a very pretty Irish tune. It was to have been in- 
troduced in "She Stoops to Conquer," but was left 
out, as the actress who played the heroine could not 
sing. 

It was in these genial moments that the sunshine of 
Goldsmith's nature would break out, and he would 
say and do a thousand whimsical and agreeable things 
that made him the life of the strictly social circle. 
Johnson, with whom conversation was everything, 
used to judge Goldsmith too much by his own collo- 
quial standard, and undervalue him for being less 
provided than himself with acquired facts, the ammu- 
nition of the tongue and often the mere lumber of the 
memory; others, however, valued him for the native 
felicity of his thoughts, however carelessly expressed, 



olivet. -::: SMITH. 

and for certain good-fellow qualities, less calculated 
to dazzle than to endear. **It is amazing.** said 
Johnson one day, after he himself had been talking 
like an oracle: **it is amazing how little Goldsmith 
knows; he seldom comes where he is not more igno- 
rant than any one else." "Yet.*" replied Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, with affectionate promptness, i% there is no 
man whose company is more liked." Two or three days 
after the dinner at General Oglethorpe's. Goldsmith 
met Johnson again at the table •:: LT^-eral Paoli, 1 the 
hero of Corsica. Martinelli, of Florence, author of 
an Italian Historv of England, was among the guests; 
as was BoswelL to whom we are indebted for minutes 
of the conversation which took place. The question 
was debated whether Martinelli should continue his 
history down to that day. "To be sure he shotL 
said Goldsmith. "No, sir," cried Johnson, "it would 
give great offence. He would have to tell of almost 
all the living great what they did not wish told.** 
Goldsmith : ** It may, perhaps, be necessary for a na- 
to be more cautious ; but a foreigner, who comes 
among us without prejudice, may be considered as 
holding the place of a judge, and may speak his mind 
freely." Johnson: "Sir, a foreigner, when he St 
a work from the press, ought to be on his guard 
against catching the error and mistaken enthusiasm 
of the people among whom he happens to be." Gold- 
smith: "Sir, he wants only to sell his history, and 
to tell truth; one an honest, the other a laudable 
motive." Johnson : ** Sir, they are both laudable mo- 
tives. It is laudable in a man to wish to live by his 

i General Paoli (pa'-o-le) (1725-1807), at the head of the 
Coraiean government . earned on war with Genoa. The French 
forced him to take refuge in England in 1769. 



330 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

labors ; but he should write so as he may live by them, 
not so as he may be knocked on the head. I would 
advise him to be at Calais before he publishes his 
history of the present age. A foreigner who attaches 
himself to a political party in this country is in the 
worst state that can be imagined ; he is looked upon 
as a mere intermeddler. A native may do it from 
interest." Boswell: "Or principle." Goldsmith: 
"There are people who tell a hundred political lies 
every day, and are not hurt by it. Surely, then, one 
may tell truth with perfect safety." Johnson : u Why, 
sir, in the first place, he who tells a hundred lies has 
disarmed the force of his lies. But, besides, a man 
had rather have a hundred lies told of him than one 
truth which he does not wish to be told." Gold- 
smith: "For my part, I 'd tell the truth, and shame 
the devil." Johnson: "Yes, sir, but the devil will 
be angry. I wish to shame the devil as much as you 
do, but I should choose to be out of the reach of his 
claws." Goldsmith: "His claws can do you no hurt 
where you have the shield of truth." 

This last reply was one of Goldsmith's lucky hits, 
and closed the argument in his favor. 

"We talked," writes Boswell, "of the King's 
coming to see Goldsmith's new play." "I wish he 
would," said Goldsmith, adding, however, with an 
affected indifference, "not that it would do me the 
least good." "Well, then," cried Johnson, laugh- 
ing, "let us say it would do him good. No, sir, this 
affectation will not pass, — it is mighty idle. In 
such a state as ours, who would not wish to please 
the chief magistrate?" 

"I do wish to please him," rejoined Goldsmith. 
" I remember a line in Dryden : — 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 331 

" ' And every poet is the monarch's friend ; ' 

it ought to be reversed." "Nay," said Johnson, 
"there are finer lines in Dry den on this subject: — 

" ' For colleges on bounteous kings depend, 
And never rebel was to arts a friend.' " 

General Paoli observed that "successful rebels might 
be." "Happy rebellions," interjected Martinelli. 
"We have no such phrase," cried Goldsmith. "But 
have you not the thing?" asked Paoli. "Yes," re- 
plied Goldsmith, "all our happy revolutions. They 
have hurt our constitution, and will hurt it, till we 
mend it by another happy revolution." This 
was a sturdy sally of Jacobitism, that quite sur- 
prised Boswell, but must have been relished by 
Johnson. 

General Paoli mentioned a passage in the play, 
which had been construed into a compliment to a lady 
of distinction, whose marriage with the Duke of 
Cumberland had excited the strong disapprobation of 
the King as a mesalliance. Boswell, to draw Gold- 
smith out, pretended to think the compliment unin- 
tentional. The poet smiled and hesitated. The Gen- 
eral came to his relief. "Monsieur Goldsmith," said 
he, "est comme la mer, qui jette des perles et beau- 
coup d'autres belles choses, sans s'en appercevoir." 
(Mr. Goldsmith is like the sea, which casts forth 
pearls and many other beautiful things without per- 
ceiving it.) 

"Tres-bien dit, et tres-elegamment ! " (Very well 
said, and very elegantly) exclaimed Goldsmith, de- 
lighted with so beautiful a compliment from such a 
quarter. 

Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of 



332 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Mr. Harris, 1 of Salisbury, and doubted his being a 
good Grecian. "He is what is much better," cried 
Goldsmith, with prompt good-nature, — "he is a wor- 
thy, humane man." "Nay, sir," rejoined the logical 
Johnson, "that is not to the purpose of our argu- 
ment; that will prove that he can play upon the fid- 
dle as well as Giardini, 2 as that he is an eminent 
Grecian." Goldsmith found he had got into a scrape, 
and seized upon Giardini to help him out of it. 
"The greatest musical performers," said he, dexter- 
ously turning the conversation, "have but small emol- 
uments; Giardini, I am told, does not get above 
seven hundred a year." "That is indeed but little 
for a man to get," observed Johnson, "who does best 
that which so many endeavor to do. There is no- 
thing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so 
much as playing on the fiddle. In all other things 
we can do something at first. Any man will forge 
a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer; not so well 
as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of 
wood, and make a box, though a clumsy one ; but give 
him a fiddle and fiddle-stick and he can do nothing." 
This, upon the whole, though reported by the one- 
sided Boswell, is a tolerable specimen of the conver- 
sations of Goldsmith and Johnson ; the former heed- 
less, often illogical, always on the kind-hearted side 
of the question, and prone to redeem himself by lucky 
hits ; the latter closely argumentative, studiously sen- 
tentious, often profound, and sometimes laboriously 
prosaic. 

1 James Harris (1709-1780) was a great Greek scholar. He 
"gave his whole time, for a period of fourteen years, to the 
study of his favorite Greek and Latin authors." 

3 (Jar-dg'-ne). A celebrated Italian violinist (1716-1796). 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 333 

They had an argument a few days later at Mr. 
Thrale's table, on the subject of suicide. "Do you 
think, sir," said Boswell, "that all who commit sui- 
cide are mad?" "Sir," replied Johnson, "they are 
not often universally disordered in their intellects, 
but one passion presses so upon them that they yield 
to it, and commit suicide, as a passionate man will 
stab another. I have often thought," added he, 
"that after a man has taken the resolution to kill 
himself, it is not courage in him to do anything, how- 
ever desperate, because he has nothing to fear." "I 
don't see that," observed Goldsmith. "Nay, but, my 
dear sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should you not see 
what everyone else does?" "It is," replied Gold- 
smith, "for fear of something that he has resolved to 
kill himself; and will not that timid disposition re- 
strain him?" "It does not signify," pursued John- 
son, "that the fear of something made him resolve; 
it is upon the state of his mind, after the resolution 
is taken, that I argue. Suppose a man, either from 
fear, or pride, or conscience, or whatever motive, has 
resolved to kill himself ; when once the resolution is 
taken he has nothing to fear. He may then go and 
take the King of Prussia by the nose at the head of 
his army. He cannot fear the rack who is determined 
to kill himself." Boswell reports no more of the 
discussion, though Goldsmith might have continued 
it with advantage: for the very timid disposition, 
which through fear of something was impelling the 
man to commit suicide, might restrain him from an 
act involving the punishment of the rack, more terri- 
ble to him than death itself. 

It is to be regretted in all these reports by Boswell, 
we have scarcely anything but the remarks of John- 



334 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

son ; it is only by accident that he now and then gives 
us the observations of others, when they are necessary 
to explain or set off those of his hero. "When in 
that presence" says Miss Burney, u he was unobser- 
vant, if not contemptuous of every one else. In truth, 
when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore 
even answering anything that was said, or attending 
to anything that went forward, lest he should miss 
the smallest sound from that voice, to which he paid 
such exclusive though merited homage. But the 
moment that voice burst forth, the attention which it 
excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. 
His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear 
almost on the shoulder of the Doctor ; and his mouth 
dropped open to catch every syllable that might be 
uttered; nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a 
word, but to be anxious not to miss a breathing, as 
if hoping from it latently or mystically some infor- 
mation." 

On one occasion the Doctor detected Boswell, or 
Bozzy, as he called him, eaves-dropping behind his 
chair, as he was conversing with Miss Burney at Mr. 
Thrale's table. "What are you doing there, sir?" 
cried he, turning round angrily, and clapping his 
hand upon his knee. "Go to the table, sir." 

Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submis- 
sion, which raised a smile on every face. Scarce had 
he taken his seat, however, at a distance, than, impa- 
tient to get again at the side of Johnson, he rose and 
was running off in quest of something to show him, 
when the Doctor roared after him authoritatively, 
"What are you thinking of, sir? Why do you get 
up before the cloth is removed ? Come back to your 
place, sir;" and the obsequious spaniel did as he 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 335 

was commanded. "Running about in the middle of 
meals!" muttered the Doctor, pursing his mouth at 
the same time to restrain his rising risibility. 

BosweU got another rebuff from Johnson, which 
would have demolished any other man. He had been 
teasing him with many direct questions, such as, 
''What did you do. sir? What did you say, sir?" 
until the great philologist became perfectly enraged. 
"I will not be put to the question.'" roared he. 
"Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the man- 
ners of a gentleman? I will not be baited with what 
and why: W^hat is this? What is that? Why is 
a cow's tail long? Why is a fox's tail bushy?" 
14 Why, sir," replied pilgarlick, 1 "you are so good 
that I venture to trouble you." "Sir," replied John- 
son, "my being so good is no reason why you should 
be so ill." "You have but two topics, sir," exclaimed 
he on another occasion, "yourself and me, and I am 
sick of both." 

Bos well's inveterate disposition to toad was a sore 
cause of mortification to his father, the old laird of 
Auehinleek 2 (or Affleck). He had been annoyed by 
his extravagant devotion to Paoli. but then he was 
something of a military hero : but this tagging at the 
heels of Dr. Johnson, whom he considered a kind of ped- 
agogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment. "There's 
nae hope for Jamie, mon," said he to a friend; 
"Jamie is gaen clean gyte. 3 What do you think, 
mon? He's done wi* Paoli; he's off wi' the land- 

1 A vague term of reproach ; a worthless fellow. 

8 (Ach-in-lek' or af-flek'. i James Boswell's father was a 
. e of Auehinleek, Ayrshire, near Glasgow. He " was one 
of the judges of the Court of Sessions, and as such was styled 
Lord Auehinleek.'' Crazy. 



336 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do 
you think he has pinn'd himself to now, mon? A 
dominie, mon; an auld dominie; he keeped a schule, 
and cau'd it an academy." 

We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's 
devotion to the dominie did not go unrewarded. 



CHAPTER XL. 

Changes in the Literary Club. — Johnson's Objection to Garrick. 
Election of Boswell. 

The Literary Club (as we have termed the club in 
Gerard Street, though it took that name some time 
later) had now been in existence several years. John- 
son was exceedingly chary at first of its exclusiveness, 
and opposed to its being augmented in number. Not 
long after its institution, Sir Joshua Reynolds was 
speaking of it to Garrick. "I like it much," said 
little David, briskly; "I think I shall be of you." 
"When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson," 
says Boswell, "he was much displeased with the ac- 
tor's conceit. " He "11 he of us! ' ' growled he. ' How 
does he know we will permit him? The first duke in 
England has no right to hold such language. ' ' 

When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of Gar T 
rick's pretensions, "Sir," replied Johnson, "he will 
disturb us by his buffoonery." In the same spirit he 
declared to Mr. Thrale, that, if Garrick should apply 
for admission, he would black-ball him. "Who, 
sir?" exclaimed Thrale, with surprise. "Mr. Gar- 
rick — your friend, your companion — black-ball 
him!" "Why, sir!" replied Johnson, "I love my 
little David dearly — better than all or any of his 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 337 

flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society 
like ours, — 

" * Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.' " 

The exclusion from the club was a sore mortifica- 
tion to Garrick, though he bore it without complain- 
ing. He could not help continually to ask questions 
about it — what was going on there — whether he 
was ever the subject of conversation. By degrees 
the rigor of the club relaxed : some of the members 
grew negligent. Beauclerc lost his right of mem- 
bership by neglecting to attend. On his marriage, 
however, with Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the 
Duke of Marlborough, and recently divorced from 
Viscount Bolingbroke, he had claimed and regained 
his seat in the club. The number of members had 
likewise been augmented. The proposition to increase 
it originated with Goldsmith. "It would give," he 
thought, " an agreeable variety to their meetings ; for 
there can be nothing new amongst us," said he; "we 
have travelled over each other's minds." Johnson 
.was piqued at the suggestion. "Sir," said he, "you 
have not travelled over my mind, I promise you." 
Sir Joshua, less confident in the exhaustless fecundity 
of his mind, felt and acknowledged the force of Gold- 
smith's suggestion. Several new members, therefore, 
had been added; the first, to his great joy, was David 
Garrick. Goldsmith, who was now on cordial terms 
with him, had zealously promoted his election, and 
Johnson had given it his warm approbation. An- 
other new member was Beauclerc' s friend, Lord 
Charlemont; and a still more important one was Mr. 
(afterwards Sir William) Jones, 1 the famous Orien- 

i (1746-1794.) He was knighted in 1783. 



338 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

talist, at that time a young lawyer of the Temple and 
a distinguished scholar. 

To the great astonishment of the club, Johnson 
now proposed his devoted follower, Boswell, as a 
member. He did it in a note addressed to Gold- 
smith, who presided on the evening of the 23d of 
April. The nomination was seconded by Beauclerc. 
According to the rules of the club, the ballot would 
take place at the next meeting (on the 30th); there 
was an intervening week, therefore, in which to dis- 
cuss the pretensions of the candidate. We may easily 
imagine the discussions that took place. Boswell had 
made himself absurd in such a variety of ways that 
the very idea of his admission was exceedingly irk- 
some to some of the members. "The honor of being 
elected into the Turk's Head Club," said the Bishop 
of St. Asaph, "is not inferior to that of being repre- 
sentative of Westminster and Surrey;" what had 
Boswell done to merit such an honor? What chance 
had he of gaining it? The answer was simple: he 
had been the persevering worshipper, if not sycophant, 
of Johnson. The great lexicographer had a heart to 
be won by apparent affection ; he stood forth authori- 
tatively in support of his vassal. If asked to state 
the merits of the candidate, he summed them up in an 
indefinite but comprehensive word of his own coining : 
— he was clubable. He moreover gave significant 
hints that if Boswell were kept out he should oppose 
the admission of any other candidate. No further 
opposition was made; in fact none of the members 
had been so fastidious and exclusive in regard to the 
club as Johnson himself; and if he were pleased, they 
were easily satisfied: besides, they knew that, with 
all his faults, Boswell was a cheerful companion, and 
possessed lively social qualities. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 339 

On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, 
Beauclerc gave a dinner, at his house in the Adelphi, 
where Boswell met several of the members who were 
favorable to his election. After dinner the latter 
adjourned into the club, leaving Boswell in company 
with Lady Di Beauclerc until the fate of his elec- 
tion should be known. He sat, he says, in a state 
of anxiety which even the charming conversation of 
Lady Di could not entirely dissipate. It was not 
long before tidings were brought of his election, and 
he was conducted to the place of meeting, where, 
beside the company he had met at dinner, Burke, 
Dr. Nugent, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William 
Jones were waiting to receive him. The club, not- 
withstanding all its learned dignity in the eyes of the 
world, could at times "unbend and play the fool" as 
well as less important bodies. Some of its jocose 
conversations have at times leaked out, and a society 
in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song of 
"an old woman tossed in a blanket," could not be so 
very staid in its gravity. We may suppose, there- 
fore, the jokes that had been passing among the mem- 
bers while awaiting the arrival of Boswell. Beauclerc 
himself could not have repressed his disposition for 
a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we have a right to 
presume all this from the conduct of Dr. Johnson 
himself. 

With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund of 
quiet humor, and felt a kind of whimsical responsi- 
bility to protect the club from the absurd propensities 
of the very questionable associate he had thus inflicted 
on them. Rising, therefore, as Boswell entered, he 
advanced with a very doctorial air, placed himself 
behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or 



340 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

pulpit, and then delivered, ex cathedra, 1 a mock sol- 
emn charge, pointing out the conduct expected from 
him as a good member of the club; what he was to 
do, and especially what he was to avoid; including 
in the latter, no doubt, all those petty, prying, ques- 
tioning, gossiping, babbling habits which had so often 
grieved the spirit of the lexicographer. It is to be 
regretted that Boswell has never thought proper to 
note down the particulars of this charge, which, from 
the well-known characters and positions of the par- 
ties, might have furnished a parallel to the noted 
charge of Launcelot Gobbo 2 to his dog. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

Dinner at Dilly's. — Conversations on Natural History. — Inter- 
meddling of Boswell. — Dispute about Toleration. — Johnson's 
Rebuff to Goldsmith; His Apology. — Man- Worship. — Doc- 
tors Major and Minor. — A Farewell Visit. 

A few days after the serio-comic scene of the ele- 
vation of Boswell into the Literary Club, we find that 
indefatigable biographer giving particulars of a din- 
ner at the Dillys', 3 booksellers, in the Poultry, at 
which he met Goldsmith and Johnson, with several 
other literary characters. His anecdotes of the con- 
versation, of course, go to glorify Dr. Johnson; for, 

1 From the throne; that is, with authority. 

2 It was not Launcelot Gobbo of Shakespeare's Merchant of 
Venice, but Launce of Two Gentlemen of Verona (Act II. Scene 
iii.) who utters this famous charge. 

8 Charles and Edward Dilly, brothers, were celebrated for 
their hospitality. Their dinners were styled " Poultry dinners " 
after the location of their place of business, " 22 in the Poultry." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 341 

as he observes in his biography, "his conversation 
alone, or what led to it, or was interwoven with it, is 
the business of this work." Still, on the present, as 
on other occasions, he gives unintentional and perhaps 
unavoidable gleams of Goldsmith's good sense, which 
show that the latter only wanted a less prejudiced 
and more impartial reporter to put down the charge 
of colloquial incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. 
The conversation turned upon the natural history of 
birds, a beautiful subject, on which the poet, from 
his recent studies, his habits of observation, and his 
natural tastes, must have talked with instruction and 
feeling; yet, though we have much of what Johnson 
said, we have only a casual remark or two of Gold- 
smith. One was on the migration of swallows, which 
he pronounced partial; "the stronger ones," said he, 
"migrate, the others do not." 

Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of 
reason. "Birds," said he, "build by instinct; they 
never improve; they build their first nest as well as 
any one they ever build." "Yet we see," observed 
Goldsmith, "if you take away a bird's nest with the 
eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay 
again." "Sir," replied Johnson, "that is because 
at first she has full time, and makes her nest deliber- 
ately. In the case you mention, she is pressed to 
lay, and must, therefore, make her nest quickly, and 
consequently it will be slight." "The nidification 1 
of birds," rejoined Goldsmith, "is what is least known 
in natural history, though one of the most curious 
things in it." While conversation was going on in 
this placid, agreeable, and instructive manner, the 
eternal meddler and busybody, Boswell, must intrude 
1 Art of nest-building. 



342 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

to put in a brawl. The Dillys were dissenters; two 
of their guests were dissenting clergymen; another, 
Mr. Toplady, 1 was a clergyman of the established 
church. Johnson himself was a zealous, uncompro- 
mising churchman. None but a marplot like Boswell 
would have thought, on such an occasion and in such 
company, to broach the subject of religious toleration; 
but, as has been well observed, "it was his perverse 
inclination to introduce subjects that he hoped would 
produce difference and debate. " In the present in- 
stance he gained his point. An animated dispute 
immediately arose, in which, according to Boswell's 
report, Johnson monopolized the greater part of the 
conversation ; not always treating the dissenting cler- 
gymen with the greatest courtesy, and even once 
wounding the feelings of the mild and amiable Bennet 
Langton by his harshness. 

Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute and with 
some advantage, but was cut short by flat contradic- 
tions when most in the right. He sat for a time silent 
but impatient under such overbearing dogmatism, 
though Boswell, with his usual misinterpretation, 
attributes his "restless agitation " to a wish to get in 
and shine. "Finding himself excluded," continues 
Boswell, "he had taken his hat to go away, but re- 
mained for a time with it in his hand, like a gamester 
who at the end of a long night lingers for a little 
while to see if he can have a favorable opportunity 
to finish with success." Once he was beginning to 
speak, when he was overpowered by the loud voice of 
Johnson, who was at the opposite end of the table, 
and did not perceive his attempt ; whereupon he threw 

1 Augustus Toplady (top'-la-di) (1740-1778) was a famous 
clergyman and sacred poet: author of " Rock of Ages." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 343 

down, as it were, his hat and his argument, and, 
darting an angry glance at Johnson, exclaimed in a 
bitter tone, "Take it ! " 

Just then one of the disputants was beginning to 
speak, when Johnson uttering some sound, as if about 
to interrupt him, Goldsmith, according to Boswell, 
seized the opportunity to vent his own envy and spleen 
under pretext of supporting another person. "Sir," 
said he to Johnson, "the gentleman has heard you 
patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to hear 
him." It was a reproof in the lexicographer's own 
style, and he may have felt that he merited it ; but 
he was not accustomed to be reproved. "Sir," said 
he, sternly, "I was not interrupting the gentleman; 
I was only giving him a signal of my attention. Sir, 
you are impertinent." Goldsmith made no reply, but 
after some time went away, having another engage- 
ment. 

That evening, as Boswell was on the way with 
Johnson and Langton to the club, he seized the occa- 
sion to make some disparaging remarks on Goldsmith, 
which he thought would just then be acceptable to 
the great lexicographer. "It was a pity," he said, 
" that Goldsmith would on every occasion endeavor to 
shine, by which he so often exposed himself." Lang- 
ton contrasted him with Addison, who, content with 
the fame of his writings, acknowledged himself unfit 
for conversation ; and on being taxed by a lady with 
silence in company, replied, "Madam, I have but 
ninepence in ready money, but I can draw for a thou- 
sand pounds." To this Boswell rejoined that Gold- 
smith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but was 
always taking out his purse. "Yes, sir," chuckled 
Johnson, "and that so often an empty purse." 



344 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

By the time Johnson arrived at the club, however, 
his angry feelings had subsided, and his native gener- 
osity and sense of justice had got the uppermost. He 
found Goldsmith in company with Burke, Garrick, 
and other members, but sitting silent and apart, 
"brooding," as Bos well says, "over the reprimand 
he had received." Johnson's good heart yearned 
towards him; and knowing his placable nature, "I '11 
make Goldsmith forgive me," whispered he; then, 
with a loud voice, "Dr. Goldsmith," said he, "some- 
thing passed to-day where you and I dined, — 1 ash 
your pardon." The ire of the poet was extinguished 
in an instant, and his grateful affection for the mag- 
nanimous though sometimes overbearing moralist 
rushed to his heart. "It must be much from you, 
sir," said he, "that I take ill." "And so," adds Bos- 
well, "the difference was over, and they were on as 
easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rattled away as 
usual." We do not think these stories tell to the 
poet's disadvantage, even though related by Boswell. 

Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be igno- 
rant of his proper merit, and must have felt annoyed 
at times at being undervalued and elbowed aside by 
light-minded or dull men, in their blind and exclusive 
homage to the literary autocrat. It was a fine re- 
proof he gave to Boswell on one occasion, for talking 
of Johnson as entitled to the honor of exclusive supe- 
riority. "Sir, you are for making a monarchy what 
should be a republic." On another occasion, when 
he was conversing in company with great vivacity, 
and apparently to the satisfaction of those around 
him, an honest Swiss who sat near, one George 
Michael Moser, keeper of the Royal Academy, per- 
ceiving Dr. Johnson rolling himself as if about to 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 345 

speak, exclaimed, "Stay, stay! Toctor Slionson is 
going to say something." "And are you sure, sir," 
replied Goldsmith, sharply, "that you can compre- 
hend what he says? " 

This clever rebuke, which gives the main zest to 
the anecdote, is omitted by Boswell, who probably 
did not perceive the point of it. 

He relates another anecdote of the kind on the 
authority of Johnson himself. The latter and Gold- 
smith were one evening in company with the Rev. 
George Graham, a master of Eton, who, notwith- 
standing the sobriety of his cloth, had got intoxicated 
"to about the pitch of looking at one man and talk- 
ing to another." "Doctor," cried he, in an ecstasy 
of devotion and good-will, but goggling by mistake 
upon Goldsmith. "I should be glad to see you at 
Eton." "I shall be glad to wait upon you," replied 
Goldsmith. "Xo, no!*' cried the other, eagerly: 
"'tis not you I mean, Doctor Minor, 'tis Doctor 
Major there." "You may easily conceive," said 
Johnson, in relating the anecdote, "what effect this 
had upon Goldsmith, who was irascible as a hornet." 
The only comment, however, which he is said to have 
made, partakes more of quaint and dry humor than 
bitterness. ''That Graham," said he, "is enough to 
make one commit suicide." What more could be 
said to express the intolerable nuisance of a consum- 
mate bore f 

We have now given the last scenes between Gold- 
smith and Johnson which stand recorded by Boswell. 
The latter called on the poet, a few days after the 
dinner at Dilly's. to take leave of him prior to depart- 
ing for Scotland ; yet even in this last interview he 
contrives to get up a charge of "jealousy and envy." 



346 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Goldsmith, he would fain persuade us, is very angry 
that Johnson is going to travel with him in Scotland, 
and endeavors to persuade him that he will be a dead 
weight "to lug along through the Highlands and 
Hebrides." 1 Any one else, knowing the character 
and habits of Johnson, would have thought the same; 
and no one but Boswell would have supposed his office 
of bear-leader to the Ursa Major a thing to be envied. 2 

1 Islands west of Scotland, visited by Dr. Johnson and Boswell 
in 1773. The former's Journal of their tour is well known to- 
day. 

2 One of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) a most amusing jeux 
d'esprit b is his congratulatory epistle to Boswell on this tour, of 
which we subjoin a few lines. 

" O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name, 
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame ; 
Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth, 
To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native North; 
To frighten grave professors with his roar, 
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore, 



Bless'd be thy labors, most adventurous Bozzy, 
Bold rival of Sir John and Dame Piozzi ; c 
Heavens! with what laurels shall thy head be crown'd! 
A grove, a forest shall thy ears surround! 
Yes! whilst the Rambler shall a comet blaze, 
And gild a world of darkness with his rays, 
Thee, too, that world with wonderment shall hail, 
A lively, bouncing cracker at his tail ! " 

a John Wolcot (Wul'-kot) (1738-1819) was an English satirist, so powerful that 
those who feared his attacks attempted to bribe him to cease writing. He pub- 
lished his " Bozzy and Piozzi " in 1786. 

b Plays of wit. 

c Mrs. Thrale. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 347 



CHAPTER XLII. 

Project of a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. — Disappointment. 
— Negligent Authorship. — Application for a Pension. — 
Beattie's Essay on Truth. — Public Adulation. — A High- 
Minded Rebuke. 

The works which Goldsmith had still in hand be- 
ing already paid for, and the money gone, some new 
scheme must be devised to provide for the past and 
the future, — for impending debts which threatened 
to crush him, and expenses which were continually 
increasing. He now projected a work of greater com- 
pass than any he had yet undertaken : a Dictionary 
of Arts and Sciences on a comprehensive scale, which 
was to occupy a number of volumes. For this he 
received promise of assistance from several powerful 
hands. Johnson was to contribute an article on eth- 
ics; Burke, an abstract of his "Essay on the Sublime 
and Beautiful," an essay on the Berkleyan system 
of philosophy, and others on political science; Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, an essay on painting ; and Garrick, 
while he undertook on his own part to furnish an 
essay on acting, engaged Dr. Burney to contribute an 
article on music. Here was a great array of talent 
positively engaged, while other writers of eminence 
were to be sought for the various departments of 
science. Goldsmith was to edit the whole. An un- 
dertaking of this kind, while it did not incessantly 
task and exhaust his inventive powers by original 
composition, would give agreeable and profitable ex- 
ercise to his taste and judgment in selecting, compil- 
ing, and arranging; and he calculated to diffuse over 
the whole the acknowledged graces of his style. 



348 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

He drew up a prospectus of the plan, which is said 
by Bishop Percy, who saw it, to have been written 
with uncommon ability, and to have had that per- 
spicuity and elegance for which his writings are re- 
markable. This paper, unfortunately, is no longer in 
existence. 

Goldsmith's expectations, always sanguine respect- 
ing any new plan, were raised to an extraordinary 
height by the present project; and well they might 
be, when we consider the powerful coadjutors already 
pledged. They were doomed, however, to complete 
disappointment. Davies, the bibliopole of Russell 
Street, lets us into the secret of this failure. "The 
booksellers," said he, "notwithstanding they had a 
very good opinion of his abilities, yet were startled 
at the bulk, importance, and expense of so great an 
undertaking, the fate of which was to depend upon 
the industry of a man with whose indolence of temper 
and method of procrastination they had long been 
acquainted." 

Goldsmith certainly gave reason for some such 
distrust by the heedlessness with which he conducted 
his literary undertakings. Those unfinished, but paid 
for, would be suspended to make way for some job 
that was to provide for present necessities. Those 
thus hastily taken up would be as hastily executed, 
and the whole, however pressing, would be shoved 
aside and left "at loose ends," on some sudden call 
to social enjoyment or recreation. 

Cradock tells us that on one occasion, when Gold- 
smith was hard at work on his "Natural History," 
he sent to Dr. Percy and himself, entreating them to 
finish some pages of his work which lay upon his 
table, and for which the press was urgent, he being 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. U? 



detained by other engagements at Windsor. They 
met by appointment at bis chambers in the Temple, 
where they found everything in disorder, and costly 

V.ks -7:--: 5.:...~-:-T.l L. : -.:: :~ :Lr :i '.-? iz.i :z. :_r 
floor; many of the books on natural history which he 
had recently consulted lay open among uncollected 
proof-sheets. The subject in hand, and from which 
he had suddenly broken off, related to birds. "Do 
you know anything about birds? 99 asked Dr. Percy, 
smiling. ~Not an atom," replied Cradock: "do 
you?' "Not I! I scarcely know a goose from a 
swan; however, let us try what we can do." They 
set to work and completed their friendly task. Gold- 
~_tL :t :~,i_t :: :-:-r ::. zz..i:\r -.;_ 
:Li: -V-r- :;L: !..::_,: :: :Lri_ -:._-:- 
share. The engagement at Windsor, which 
had thus caused Goldsmith to break off suddenly 
fr-:~ Li^ zi-LLfirii-s ±-p.z- — -"±. ~.:~ 2 :^-'~ '-- 
pleasure with some literary ladies. Another anecdote 
v^i :irr-:-~:. Liu-rr-^i-r :: :ir 
Lr rir:::c.: -::Ls :-:.:::::- ^ 
C 1 :_t LL: ;: Tllt l.r Lv: :-rr:~r'. : .\~_ir- : :z 
advance for a "Grecian History" in two v olumes , 
though only one was finished. As he was pushing 
on doggedly at the second volume, Gibbon, the his- 
torian, called in. -Ton are the man of all others 
I wish to see,** cried die poet, glad to be saved the 
trouble of refer ence to Ins books. ~ What was the 
lizir :: :L\: Zz. Lah £:-j— "-; . .- J-l-z^z. [-: - :".- 
(>:,.: - :__ I":. :: .: '., " V :z. ^r^." : -:*.-": 




(356-333 B.C-). He 
Pons. 

(1479 (?>-lSO) vas onpenv «r «ar dfef 



350 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Gibbon 1 sportively. The heedless author was about 
committing the name to paper without reflection, 
when Gibbon pretended to recollect himself, and gave 
the true name, Porus. 

This story, very probably, was a sportive exagger- 
ation; but it was a multiplicity of anecdotes like this 
and the preceding one, some true and some false, 
which had impaired the confidence of booksellers in 
Goldsmith as a man to be relied on for a task requir- 
ing wide and accurate research, and close and long- 
continued application. The project of the "Universal 
Dictionary," therefore, met with no encouragement, 
and fell through. 

The failure of this scheme, on which he had built 
such spacious hopes, sank deep into Goldsmith's 
heart. He was still further grieved and mortified by 
the failure of an effort made by some of his friends 
to obtain for him a pension from government. There 
had been a talk of the disposition of the ministry to 
extend the bounty of the crown to distinguished lit- 
erary men in pecuniary difficulty, without regard to 
their political creed : when the merits and claims of 
Goldsmith, however, were laid before them, they met 
no favor. The sin of sturdy independence lay at his 
door. He had refused to become a ministerial hack 
when offered a carte blanche 2 by Parson Scott, the 
cabinet emissary. The wondering parson had left 

1 Edward Gibbon (1734-1794) was the author of The History 
of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Goldsmith would 
naturally regard him as an authority on Grecian history. 

3 (Kart blonsh). Literally this means a paper signed in 
blank, which the bearer is at liberty to fill out to suit himself ; 
therefore, authority without condition. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 351 

him in poverty and "his garret," and there the min- 
istry were disposed to suffer him to remain. 

In the meantime Dr. Beattie 1 comes out with his 
"Essay on Truth," and all the orthodox world are 
thrown into a paroxysm of contagious ecstasy. He 
is cried up as the great champion of Christianity 
against the attacks of modern philosophers and infi- 
dels; he is feted and flattered in every way. He 
receives at Oxford the honorary degree of Doctor of 
Civil Law, at the same time with Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds. The King sends for him, praises his Essay, 
and gives him a pension of two hundred pounds. 

Goldsmith feels more acutely the denial of a pen- 
sion to himself when one has thus been given unso- 
licited to a man he might without vanity consider so 
much his inferior. He was not one to conceal his 
feelings. "Here's such a stir," said he one day at 
Thrale's table, "about a fellow that has written one 
book, and I have written so many ! " 

"Ah, Doctor!" exclaimed Johnson, in one of his 
caustic moods, "there go two-and-forty sixpences, 
you know, to one guinea." This is one of the cuts 
at poor Goldsmith in which Johnson went contrary to 
head and heart in his love for saying what is called a 
"good thing." No one knew better than himself the 
comparative superiority of the writings of Goldsmith; 
but the jingle of the sixpences and the guinea was 
not to be resisted. 

" Every body," exclaimed Mrs. Thrale, "loves Dr. 
Beattie, but Goldsmith, who says he cannot bear the 
sight of so much applause as they all bestow upon 

1 James Beattie (b5'-tl) (1735-1803) was a Scotch essayist 
and poet. His Essay on Truth appeared in 1770. 



352 OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 

him. Did he not tell us so himself, no one would 
believe he was so exceedingly ill-natured." 

He told them so himself because he was too open 
and unreserved to disguise his feelings, and because 
he really considered the praise lavished on Beattie 
extravagant, as in fact it was. It was all, of course, 
set down to sheer envy and uncharitableness. To add 
to his annoyance, he found his friend Sir Joshua 
[Reynolds joining in the universal adulation. He 
had painted a full-length portrait of Beattie decked 
in the doctor's robes in which he had figured at Ox- 
ford, with the "Essay on Truth" under his arm and 
the angel of truth at his side, while Voltaire figured 
as one of the demons of infidelity, sophistry, and false- 
hood, driven into utter darkness. 

Goldsmith had known Voltaire in early life; he 
had been his admirer and his biographer; he grieved 
to find him receiving such an insult from the classic 
pencil of his friend. "It is unworthy of you," said 
he to Sir Joshua, " to debase so high a genius as Vol- 
taire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie 
and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while 
Voltaire's fame will last forever. Take care it does 
not perpetuate this picture to the shame of such a 
man as you." This noble and high-minded rebuke 
is the only instance on record of any reproachful 
words between the poet and the painter; and we are 
happy to find that it did not destroy the harmony of 
their intercourse. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



CHAPTER XLHI. 

Toil withont Hope. — The Poet in the Green-Room: In the 
Flower- Garden; At Vanrhall; Dissipation without Gaji 

— Cradock in Town; Friendly Sympathy; A Parting Scene; 
An Invitation to Pleasure. 

Thwarted in the plans and disappointed in the 
hopes which had recently cheered and animated him. 
Goldsmith found the labor at his half -finished t; 
doubly irksome from the consciousness that the com- 
mon of them could not relieve him from his pecu- 
niary embarrassments. His impaired health, also, 
rendered him less capable than formerly of sedentary 
application, and continual perplexities disturbed the 
flow of thought necessary for original composition. 
He lost his usual gayety and good-humor, and be- 
came, at times, peevish and irritable. Too proud of 
spirit to seek sympathy or relief from his friends, for 
the pecuniary difficulties he had brought upm him- 
self by his errors and extravagance, and unwilling, 
perhaps, to make known their amount, he buried his 
cares and anxirri-r? in his own bosom, and endeavored 
in company to keep up his usual air of gayety and 
unconcern. This gave his conduct an appearance of 
fitfulness and caprice, varying suddenly from moodi- 
ness to mirth, and from silent gia t ilj f - shallow 
laughter ; causing surprise and ridicule in those who 
re not aware of the sickness of heart which lay 
beneath. 

Hi- poetical reputation. I sometimes I 

advantage to him: it drew upon him a notor: 
which he was not always in the mood or the vein to 
act up to. "Good heavens. Mr. Fc : laimed 



354 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

an actress at the Haymarket Theatre, "what a hum- 
drum kind of man Dr. Goldsmith appears in our 
green-room compared with the figure he makes in his 
poetry!" "The reason of that, madam," replied 
Foote, "is because the Muses are better company 
than the players." 

Beauclerc's letters to his friend Lord Charlemont, 
who was absent in Ireland, give us now and then an 
indication of the whereabouts of the poet during the 
present year. "I have been but once to the club 
since you left England," writes he; "we were enter- 
tained, as usual, with Goldsmith's absurdity." With 
Beauclerc everything was absurd that was not pol- 
ished and pointed. In another letter he threatens, 
unless Lord Charlemont returns to England, to bring 
over the whole club, and let them loose upon him to 
drive him home by their peculiar habits of annoyance, 
— Johnson shall spoil his books; Goldsmith shall 
pull his flowers ; and last, and most intolerable of all, 
Bos well shall — talk to him. It would appear that the 
poet, who had a passion for flowers, was apt to pass 
much of his time in the garden when on a visit to a 
country-seat, much to the detriment of the flower- 
beds and the despair of the gardener. 

The summer wore heavily away with Goldsmith. 
He had not his usual solace of a country retreat; his 
health was impaired and his spirits depressed. Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, who perceived the state of his 
mind, kindly gave him much of his company. In 
the course of their interchange of thought, Goldsmith 
suggested to him the story of Ugolino, 1 as a subject 

1 The story of Ugolino della Gherardesca, an unsuccessful 
partisan leader in Pisa in the thirteenth century, forms one of 
the most famous episodes in Dante's Inferno. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

for his pencil. The painting founded on it remains 
a memento of their friendship. 

On the 4th of August we find them together ar 
Vauxhall, at that time a place in high vogue, and 
which had once been -mith a scene of Orien- 

tal splendor and delight. We have, in fact, in the 
sn of the World," a picture of it as i: had 
struck him in former years and in his happier mo 
"Upon entering the gar ays the Chinese phi- 

losopher, **I found every sense occupied with more 
than expected pleasure : the lights everywhere glim- 
mering through the scarcely moving trees; the full- 
bodied concert bursting on the stillness of the night : 
the natural concert of the birds in the more retired 
part of the grove vying with that which was formed 
by art; the company gaylv dressed, looking satisfac- 
tion, and the tables spread with various delicacies. — 
all conspired to fill my imagination with the visionary 
happiness of the Arabian L -giver, and lifted me 
into an ecstasy of admiration.* 

rything now, however, is seen with different 
eyes ; with him it ation without pleasure ; 

and he finds it impossible any . by mingling in 

the gay and giddy throng of apparently prosperous 
and happy beings, to escape from the cark:L_ 
which is clinging to his heart. 

kind friend Cradoek came up to town to- 
wards autumn, when all the fashionable world was in 
the country, to give his wife the benefit of a skilful 
dentist. He took lodgings in Norfolk Street, to be 
in Goldsmith's neighborhood, and passed most of his 
mornings with him. "I found him," he says, "much 
altered and at tin low. He wished m<_- : 

1 Citizen of ike World, lxxi. 



356 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

over and revise some of his works ; but, with a select 
friend or two, I was more pressing that he should 
publish by subscription his two celebrated poems of 
the 4 Traveller ' and the i Deserted Village, ' with 
notes." The idea of Cradock was, that the subscrip- 
tion would enable wealthy persons, favorable to Gold- 
smith, to contribute to his pecuniary relief without 
wounding his pride. "Goldsmith," said he, "readily 
gave up to me his private copies, and said, ' Pray do 
what you please with them. ' But whilst he sat near 
me, he rather submitted to than encouraged my zeal- 
ous proceedings. 

"I one morning called upon him, however, and 
found him infinitely better than I had expected ; and, 
in a kind of exulting style, he exclaimed, ' Here are 
some of the best of my prose writings ; I have been 
hard at work since midnight, and I desire you to ex- 
amine them. ' 6 These,' said I, 4 are excellent indeed. ' 
' They are, ' replied he, ' intended as an introduction 
to a body of arts and sciences.' " 

Poor Goldsmith was, in fact, gathering together the 
fragments of his shipwreck, — the notes and essays, 
and memoranda collected for his dictionary, and pro- 
posed to found on them a work in two volumes, to be 
entitled "A Survey of Experimental Philosophy." 

The plan of the subscription came to nothing, and 
the projected survey never was executed. The head 
might yet devise, but the heart was failing him ; his 
talent at hoping, which gave him buoyancy to carry 
out his enterprises, was almost at an end. 

Cradock' s farewell scene with him is told in a 
simple but touching manner. 

"The day before I was to set out for Leicestershire, 
I insisted upon his dining with us. He replied, ' I 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 357 

will, but on one condition, that you will not ask me 
to eat anything. ' 4 Nay, ' said I, 4 this answer is ab- 
solutely unkind, for I had hoped, as we are supplied 
from the Crown and Anchor, that you would have 
named something you might have relished. ' ' Well,' 
was the reply, ' if you will but explain it to Mrs. 
Cradock, I will certainly wait upon you.' 

"The Doctor found, as usual, at my apartments, 
newspapers and pamphlets, and with a pen and ink 
he amused himself as well as he could. I had or- 
dered from the tavern some fish, a roasted joint of 
lamb, and a tart ; and the Doctor either sat down or 
walked about just as he pleased. After dinner he 
took some wine with biscuits; but I was obliged soon 
to leave him for a while, as I had matters to settle 
prior to my next day's journey. On my return, coffee 
was ready, and the Doctor appeared more cheerful 
(for Mrs. Cradock was always rather a favorite with 
him), and in the evening he endeavored to talk and 
remark as usual, but all was force. He stayed till 
midnight, and I insisted on seeing him safe home, 
and we most cordially shook hands at the Temple- 
gate." Cradock little thought that this was to be 
their final parting. He looked back to it with mourn- 
ful recollections in after years, and lamented that he 
had not remained longer in town, at every inconve- 
nience, to solace the poor broken-spirited poet. 

The latter continued in town all the autumn. At 
the opening of the Opera-House, on the 20th of No- 
vember, Mrs. Yates, 1 an actress whom he held in 
great esteem, delivered a poetical exordium of his 
composition. Beauclerc, in a letter to Lord Charle- 

1 Mrs. Mary Ann Yates (1728-1787) was one of the greatest 
of English tragic actresses. 



358 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

rnont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that it 
would soon be in all the papers. It does not ap- 
pear, however, to have been ever published. In his 
fitful state of mind Goldsmith may have taken no 
care about it, and thus it has been lost to the world, 
although it was received with great applause by a 
crowded and brilliant audience. 

A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom 
that was gathering over the poet. Towards the end 
of the year he receives another Christmas invitation 
to Barton. A country Christmas ! — with all the 
cordiality of the fireside circle, and the joyous revelry 
of the oaken hall, — what a contrast to the loneliness 
of a bachelor's chambers in the Temple! It is not to 
be resisted. But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the 
ways and means ? His purse is empty ; his booksellers 
are already in advance to him. As a last resource, 
he applies to Garrick. Their mutual intimacy at 
Barton may have suggested him as an alternative. 
The old loan of forty pounds has never been paid; 
and Newbery's note, pledged as a security, has never 
been taken up. An additional loan of sixty pounds 
is now asked for, thus increasing the loan to one hun- 
dred; to insure the payment, he now offers, besides 
Newbery's note, the transfer of the comedy of the 
" Good-Natured Man " to Drury Lane, with such alter- 
ations as Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in reply, 
evades the offer of the altered comedy, alludes signifi- 
cantly to a new one which Goldsmith had talked of 
writing for him, and offers to furnish the money re- 
quired on his own acceptance. 

The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brimful 
of gratitude and overflowing with fond anticipations 
of Barton and the smiles of its fair residents. "My 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 359 

dear friend," writes he, "I thank you. I wish I 
could do something to serve you. I shall have a 
comedy for you in a season or two, at farthest, that 
I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy 
I will make it a fine thing. You shall have the re- 
fusal. ... I will draw upon you one month after 
date for sixty pounds, and your acceptance will be 
ready money, part of which I want to go down to 
Barton with. May God preserve my honest little 
man, for he has my heart. Ever, 

Oliver Goldsmith." 

And having thus scrambled together a little pocket- 
money, by hard contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns 
his back upon care and trouble, and Temple quarters, 
to forget for a time his desolate bachelorhood in the 
family circle and a Christmas fireside at Barton. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

A Return to Drudgery; Forced Gayety; Retreat to the Country; 
The Poem of Retaliation. — Portrait of Garrick ; Of Gold- 
smith; Of Reynolds. — Illness of the Poet; His Death; Grief 
of his Friends. — A Last Word Respecting the Jessamy 
Bride. 

The Barton festivities are over ; Christmas, with 
all its home-felt revelry of the heart, has passed like 
a dream; the Jessamy Bride has beamed her last 
smile upon the poor poet, and the early part of 1774 
finds him in his now dreary bachelor abode in the 
Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at a multipli- 
city of tasks. His "Animated Nature," so long de- 
layed, so often interrupted, is at length announced 



360 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

for publication, though it has yet to receive a few 
finishing touches. He is preparing a third "History 
of England," to be compressed and condensed in one 
volume, for the use of schools. He is revising .his 
"Inquiry into Polite Learning," for which he receives 
the pittance of five guineas, much needed in his pre- 
sent scantiness of purse ; he is arranging his " Survey 
of Experimental Philosophy," and he is translating 
the "Comic Komance " of Scarron. 1 Such is apart 
of the various labors of a drudging, depressing kind, 
by which his head is made weary and his heart faint. 
"If there is a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter 
Scott, "which lowers the spirits and lacerates the 
nerves, like the toil of a slave, it is that which is ex- 
acted by literary composition, when the heart is not 
in unison with the work upon which the head is em- 
ployed. Add to the unhappy author's task sickness, 
sorrow, or the pressure of unfavorable circumstances, 
and the labor of the bondsman becomes light in com- 
parison." Goldsmith again makes an effort to rally 
his spirits by going into gay society. "Our Club," 
writes Beauclerc to Charlemont, on the 12th of Feb- 
ruary, "has dwindled away to nothing. Sir Joshua 
and Goldsmith have got into such a round of plea- 
sures that they have no time." This shows how little 
Beauclerc was the companion of the poet's mind, or 
could judge of him below the surface. Reynolds, 
the kind participator in joyless dissipation, could 
have told a different story of his companion's heart- 
sick gayety. 

In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertainments 

i Paul Scarron (ska-rou / ) (1610-1660) was a French burlesque 
poet and dramatist; he was the first husband of Madame de 
Maintenon, who was afterward privately married to Louis XIV. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 361 

in his chambers in the Temple; the last of which was 
a dinner to Johnson, Reynolds, and others of his in- 
timates, who partook with sorrow and reluctance of 
his imprndent hospitality. The first course vexed 
them by its needless profusion. When a second, 
equally extravagant, was served up. Johnson and 
Reynolds declined to partake of it; the rest of the 
company, understanding their motives, followed their 
example, and the dishes went from the table untasted. 
Goldsmith felt sensibly this silent and well-intended 
rebuke. 

The gayeties of society, however, cannot medicine 
for any length of time a mind diseased. Wearied 
by the distractions and harassed by the expenses of a 
town life, which he had not the discretion to regulate, 
Goldsmith took the resolution, too tardily adopted, of 
retiring to the serene quiet and cheap and healthful 
pleasures of the country, and of passing only two 
months of the year in London. He accordingly made 
arrangements to sell his right in the Temple cham- 
bers, and in the month of March retired to his coun- 
try quarters at Hyde, there to devote himself to toil. 
At this dispirited juncture, when inspiration seemed 
to be at an end, and the poetic fire extinguished, a 
spark fell on his combustible imagination and set it 
in a blaze. 

He belonged to a temporary association of men of 
talent, some of them members of the Literary Club, 
who dined together occasionally at the St. James's 
Coffee-House. At these dinners, as usual, he was 
one of the last to arrive. On one occasion, when he 
was more dilatory than usual, a whim seized the com- 
pany to write epitaphs on him, as "The late Dr. 
Goldsmith," and several were thrown off in a playful 



362 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

vein, hitting off his peculiarities. The only one ex- 
tant was written by Garrick, and has been preserved, 
very probably, by its pungency : — 

"Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor poll." 

Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially as 
coming from such a quarter. He was not very ready 
at repartee ; but he took his time, and in the interval 
of his various tasks concocted a series of epigrammatic 
sketches, under the title of "Retaliation," in which 
the characters of his distinguished intimates were 
admirably hit off, with a mixture of generous praise 
and good-humored raillery. In fact the poem, for its 
graphic truth, its nice discrimination, its terse good 
sense, and its shrewd knowledge of the world, must 
have electrified the club almost as much as the first 
appearance of "The Traveller," and let them still 
deeper into the character and talents of the man they 
had been accustomed to consider as their butt. " Re- 
taliation, " in a word, closed his accounts with the 
club, and balanced all his previous deficiencies. 

The portrait of David Garrick is one of the most 
elaborate in the poem. When the poet came to touch 
it off, he had some lurking piques to gratify, which 
the recent attack had revived. He may have forgot- 
ten David's cavalier treatment of him, in the early 
days of his comparative obscurity; he may have for- 
given his refusal of his plays ; but Garrick had been 
capricious in his conduct in the times of their recent 
intercourse : sometimes treating him with gross famil- 
iarity, at other times affecting dignity and reserve, 
and assuming airs of superiority; frequently he had 
been facetious and witty in company at his expense, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 363 

and lastly he had been guilty of the couplet just 
quoted. Goldsmith, therefore, touched off the lights 
and shadows of his character with a free hand, and 
at the same time gave a side-hit at his old rival, 
Kelly, and his critical persecutor, Kenrick, in mak- 
ing them sycophantic satellites of the actor. Gold- 
smith, however, was void of gall even in his revenge, 
and his very satire was more humorous than caustic : — 

" Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can, 
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man ; 
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine; 
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : 
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, 
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread, 
And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red. 
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ; 
'T was only that when he was off he was acting. 
With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 
He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day : 
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick 
If they were not his own by finessing and trick : 
He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, 
For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back. 
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, 
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ; 
Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease, 
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. 
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, 
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. 
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, 
What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave ! 
How did Grub Street reecho the shouts that you raised 
While he was be-Rosciused and you were be-praised ! 
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, 
To act as an angel and mix with the skies : 
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill, 
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; 



364 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Old Shakspeare receive him with praise and with love, 
And Beaumonts x and Bens be his Kellys above." 

This portion of "Retaliation" soon brought a re- 
tort from Garrick, which we insert, as giving some- 
thing of a likeness of Goldsmith, though in broad 
caricature : — 

" Here, Hermes, says Jove, who with nectar was mellow, 
Go fetch me some clay — I will make an odd fellow : 
Right and wrong shall be jumbled, much gold and some dross, 
Without cause be he pleased, without cause be he cross ; 
Be sure, as I work, to throw in contradictions, 
A great love of truth, yet a mind turn'd to fictions ; 
Now mix these ingredients, which, warm'd in the baking, 
Turn'd to learning and gaming, religion and raking. 
With the love of a wench let his writings be chaste ; 
Tip his tongue with strange matter, his lips with fine taste : 
That the rake and the poet o'er all may prevail. 
Set fire to the head and set fire to the tail ; 
For the joy of each sex on the world I '11 bestow it, 
This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet. 
Though a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame, 
And among brother mortals be Goldsmith his name ; 
When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear, 
You, Hermes, shall fetch him, to make us sport here." 

The charge of raking, so repeatedly advanced in 
the foregoing lines, must be considered a sportive 
one, founded, perhaps, on an incident or two within 
Garrick' s knowledge, but not borne out by the course 
of Goldsmith's life. He seems to have had a tender 
sentiment for the sex, but perfectly free from liber- 
tinism. Neither was he an habitual gamester. The 
strictest scrutiny has detected no settled vice of the 

1 Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) was an accomplished drama- 
tist ; he and John Fletcher (1579-1625) wrote many plays in 
collaboration. — " Bens " refers to Ben Jonson. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

kind. He was fond of a game of cards, but an un- 
skilful and careless player. Cards in those days w 
universally introduced into society. High play was, 
in fact, a fashionable am it one time \ 

p drinking; and a man might occasionally I 
large sums, and be beguiled into deep potations, with- 
out incurring the character of a gamester or a drunk- 
ard. Poor Goldsmith, on his advent into high so- 
ciety, assumed fine notions with fine clothes; he 
thrown occasionally among high players, men of for- 
tune who could sport their cool hundred as carelessly 
as his early comrades at Ballymahon could their half- 
crowns. Being at all times magniri sen if in money 
matters, he may have played with them in their own 
way. without considering that what was sport : d 
to him was ruin. Indeed, part of his financial em- 
barrassments may have arisen from losses of the kind, 
incurred inadvertently, not in the indulgence of a 
habit. "I do not believe Goldsmith to have dese: 
the name of gamester." said one of his contempora- 
ries: "he liked cards very well, as other people do, 
and lost and won occasionally, but as far as I saw or 
heard, and I had many opportuni: aring. never 

any considerable sum. If he gamed with any one, 
it was probably with Beauclerc. but I do not know 
that such was the case." 

"Retaliation," as we have already observed, was 
thrown off in parts, at intervals, and was never corn- 
Ted. Some characters, originally intended to be 
introduced, remained unattempted; others were 
partially sketch e s the one of Reynolds, the 

friend of his heart, and which he commenced with a 
felicity which makes us regret that it should remain 
unfinished. 



366 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

" Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, 
He has not left a wiser or better behind. 
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
Still born to improve us in every part, 
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 
When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing : 
When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, 1 and stuff, 
He shifted his trumpet 2 and only took snuff. 
By flattery unspoiled " 

The friendly portrait stood unfinished on the easel; 
the hand of the artist had failed! An access of a 
local complaint, under which he had suffered for some 
time past, added to a general prostration of health, 
brought Goldsmith back to town before he had well 
settled himself in the country. The local complaint 
subsided, but was followed by a low nervous fever. 
He was not aware of his critical situation, and in- 
tended to be at the club on the 25th of March, on 
which occasion Charles Fox, Sir Charles Bunbury 
(one of the Horneck connection), and two other new 
members were to be present. In the afternoon, how- 
ever, he felt so unwell as to take to his bed, and his 
symptoms soon acquired sufficient force to keep him 
there. His malady fluctuated for several days, and 
hopes were entertained of his recovery, but they proved 
fallacious. He had skilful medical aid and faithful 
nursing, but he would not follow the advice of his 
physicians, and persisted in the use of James's pow- 
ders, which he had once found beneficial, but which 

1 (Kor-red'-jo) (1494-1534), an Italian painter of " the Lom- 
bard school." 

2 Sir Joshua had become so deaf as to need the help of an 
ear trumpet. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 367 

were now injurious to him. His appetite was gone, 
his strength failed him, but his mind remained clear, 
and was perhaps too active for his frame. Anxieties 
and disappointments which had previously sapped his 
constitution, doubtless aggravated his present com- 
plaint and rendered him sleepless. In reply to an 
inquiry of his physician, he acknowledged that his 
mind was ill at ease. This was his last reply: he 
was too weak to talk, and in general took no notice 
of what was said to him. He sank at last into a deep 
sleep, and it was hoped a favorable crisis had arrived. 
He awoke, however, in strong convulsions, which con- 
tinued without intermission until he expired, on the 
fourth of April, at five o'clock in the morning; being 
in the forty-sixth year of his age. 

His death was a shock to the literary world, and 
a deep affliction to a wide circle of intimates and 
friends ; for, with all his foibles and peculiarities, he 
was fully as much beloved as he was admired. Burke, 
on hearing the news, burst into tears. Sir Joshua 
Reynolds threw by his pencil for the day, and grieved 
more than he had done in times of great family dis- 
tress. "I was abroad at the time of his death," writes 
Dr. M'Donnell, the youth whom when in distress he 
had employed as an amanuensis, "and I wept bitterly 
when the intelligence first reached me. A blank 
came over my heart as if I had lost one of my nearest 
relatives, and was followed for some days by a feeling 
of despondency." Johnson felt the blow deeply and 
gloomily. In writing some time afterwards to Bos- 
well, he observed, "Of poor Dr. Goldsmith there is 
little to be told more than the papers have made pub- 
lic. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, more 
violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts began to 



368 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

be heavy, and all his resources were exhausted. Sir 
Joshua is of opinion that he owed no less than two 
thousand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before? " 

Among his debts were seventy-nine pounds due to 
his tailor, Mr. William Filby, from whom he had 
received a new suit but a few days before his death. 
"My father," said the younger Filby, "though a 
loser to that amount, attributed no blame to Gold- 
smith; he had been a good customer, and, had he 
lived, would have paid every farthing." Others of 
his tradespeople evinced the same confidence in his 
integrity, notwithstanding his heedlessness. Two sis- 
ter milliners in Temple Lane, who had been accus- 
tomed to deal with him, were concerned when told, 
some time before his death, of his pecuniary embar- 
rassments. "Oh, sir," said they to Mr. Cradock, 
"sooner persuade him to let us work for him gratis 
than apply to any other; we are sure he will pay us 
when he can." 

On the stairs of his apartment there was the lamen- 
tation of the old and infirm, and the sobbing of wo- 
men, — poor objects of his charity, to whom he had 
never turned a deaf ear, even when struggling himself 
with poverty. 

But there was one mourner whose enthusiasm for 
his memory, could it have been foreseen, might have 
soothed the bitterness of death. After the coffin had 
been screwed down, a lock of his hair was requested 
for a lady, a particular friend, who wished to preserve 
it as a remembrance. It was the beautiful Mary 
Horneck — the Jessamy Bride. The coffin was opened 
again, and a lock of hair cut off, which she treasured 
to her dying day. Poor Goldsmith ! could he have 
foreseen that such a memorial of him was to be thus 
cherished ! 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 369 

One word more concerning this lady, to whom we 
have so often ventured to advert. She survived al- 
most to the present day. Hazlitt 1 met her at North- 
cote's painting room, about twenty years since, as 
Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a General Gwyn of the 
army. She was at that time upwards of seventy 
years of age. Still, he said, she was beautiful, beau- 
tiful even in years. After she was gone, Hazlitt 
remarked how handsome she still was. "I do not 
know," said Northcote, "why she is so kind as to 
come to see me, except that I am the last link in the 
chain that connects her with all those she most es- 
teemed when young — Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith 
— and remind her of the most delightful period of 
her life." "Not only so," observed Hazlitt, "but you 
remember what she was at twenty; and you thus 
bring back to her the triumphs of her youth, — that 
pride of beauty, which must be the more fondly cher- 
ished as it has no external vouchers, and lives chiefly 
in the bosom of its once lovely possessor. In her, 
however, the Graces 2 had triumphed over time; she 
was one of Ninon de l'Euclos's 3 people, of the last 
of the immortals. I could almost fancy the shade of 
Goldsmith in the room, looking round with compla- 
cency." 

The Jessamy Bride survived her sister upwards of 
forty years, and died in 1840, within a few days of 

1 William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was an English critic and 
essayist. 

2 In classical mythology the three Graces were the daughters 
of Zeus and Hera. They were the personification of grace and 
beauty. 

3 Ninon de l'Enclos (1616-1706), a noted Frenchwoman, re- 
tained her beauty and youthful freshness to extreme old age. 



370 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

completing her eighty-eighth year. "She had gone 
through all the stages of life," says Northcote, "and 
had lent a grace to each." However gayly she may 
have sported with the half-concealed admiration of 
the poor awkward poet in the heyday of her youth 
and beauty, and however much it may have been 
made a subject of teasing by her youthful compan- 
ions, she evidently prided herself in after years upon 
having been an object of his affectionate regard ; it 
certainly rendered her interesting throughout life in 
the eyes of his admirers, and has hung a poetical 
wreath above her grave. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

The Funeral. — The Monument. — The Epitaph. — Concluding 
Remarks. 

In the warm feeling of the moment, while the re- 
mains of the poet were scarce cold, it was determined 
by his friends to honor them by a public funeral and 
a tomb in Westminster Abbey. His very pall-bearers 
were designated: Lord Shelburne, Lord Lowth, Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, the Hon. Mr. Beauclerc, Mr. 
Burke, and David Garrick. This feeling cooled 
down, however, when it was discovered that he died 
in debt, and had not left wherewithal to pay for such 
expensive obsequies. Five days after his death, there- 
fore, at five o'clock of Saturday evening, the 9th of 
April, he was privately interred in the burying-ground 
of the Temple Church, — a few persons attending 
as mourners, among whom we do not find specified 
any of his peculiar and distinguished friends. The 
chief mourner was Sir Joshua Reynolds's nephew, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 371 

Palmer, afterwards Dean of Cashel. One person, 
however, from whom it was but little to be expected, 
attended the funeral and evinced real sorrow on the 
occasion. This was Hugh Kelly, once the dramatic 
rival of the deceased, and often, it is said, his anony- 
mous assailant in the newspapers. If he had really 
been guilty of this basest of literary offences, he was 
punished by the stings of remorse, for we are told that 
he shed bitter tears over the grave of the man he had 
injured. His tardy atonement only provoked the lash 
of some unknown satirist, as the following lines will 
show : — 

" Hence Kelly, who years, without honor or shame, 
Had been sticking his bodkin in Oliver's fame, 
Who thought, like the Tartar, by this to inherit 
His genius, his learning, simplicity, spirit; 
Now sets every feature to weep o'er his fate, 
And acts as a mourner to blubber in state." 

One base wretch deserves to be mentioned, the 
reptile Kenrick, who, after having repeatedly slan- 
dered Goldsmith while living, had the audacity to in- 
sult his memory when dead. The following distich 
is sufficient to show his malignancy, and to hold him 
up to execration : — 

" By his own art, who justly died, 
A blund'ring, artless suicide : 
Share, earthworms, share, since now he's dead, 
His megrim, 1 maggot-bitten head." 

This scurrilous epitaph produced a burst of public 
indignation that awed for a time even the infamous 
Kenrick into silence. On the other hand, the press 
teemed with tributes in verse and prose to the memory 
of the deceased, — all evincing the mingled feeling of 
admiration for the author and affection for the man. 
1 A kind of headache. 



372 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Not long after his death the Literary Club set on 
foot a subscription, and raised a fund to erect a mon- 
ument to his memory, in Westminster Abbey. It 
was executed by Nollekens, 1 and consisted simply of 
a bust of the poet in profile, in high relief, in a medal- 
lion, and was placed in the area of a pointed arch, 
over the south door in Poet's Corner, between the 
monuments of Gay and the Duke of Argyle. John- 
son furnished a Latin epitaph, which was read at the 
table of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where several mem- 
bers of the club and other friends of the deceased 
were present. Though considered by them a masterly 
composition, they thought the literary character of 
the poet not defined with sufficient exactness, and 
they preferred that the epitaph should be in English 
rather than Latin, as "the memory of so eminent an 
English writer ought to be perpetuated in the lan- 
guage to which his works were likely to be so lasting 
an ornament." 

These objections were reduced to writing, to be re- 
spectfully submitted to Johnson, but such was the 
awe entertained of his frown, that every one shrank 
from putting his name first to the instrument ; where- 
upon their names were written about it in a circle, 
making what mutinous sailors call a Hound Robin. 
Johnson received it half graciously, half grimly. 
"He was willing," he said, "to modify the sense of 
the epitaph in any manner the gentlemen pleased; 
but he never would consent to disgrace the walls of 
Westminster Abbey with an English inscription. 1 " 
Seeing the names of Dr. Warton and Edmund Burke 

1 Joseph Nollekens (nol'-e-kenz) (1737-1823) was a sculptor 
who modelled busts of George III., Pitt, Canning, and other dis- 
tinguished people. 



:: 17 .;-/:.: s:-::r;-: ETS 



Wartoo, a scholar by profession, should be such a 
fool: and should have thought that Mund Burke would 

as it stands inscribed on a white marble tablet be~ 

OLIYABU GOLDSMITH 

X«tetigit, 




V 






OF OUTER GOLDSMITH 
A Poet, Xatenfirt, a 

r «V'-: ;-: m-:,;- -t 5: ., .;' 
Uatooehed,' 
.•Li i 2:2:2-5-2 21:2.2 r : 2 1 : 2 t 1: 2 2:: 
Of«nthe|iiii 11, 

:: hi 



374 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

We shall not pretend to follow these anecdotes of 
the life of Goldsmith with any critical dissertation on 
his writings; their merits have long since been fully 
discussed, and their station in the scale of literary 
merit permanently established. They have outlasted 
generations of works of higher power and wider scope, 
and will continue to outlast succeeding generations, 
for they have that magic charm of style by which 
works are embalmed to perpetuity. Neither shall we 
attempt a regular analysis of the character of the 
poet, but will indulge in a few desultory remarks, in 
addition to those scattered throughout the preceding 
chapters. 

Never was the trite, because sage apophthegm, that 
"the child is father to the man," more fully verified 
than in the case of Goldsmith. He is shy, awkward, 
and blundering in childhood, yet full of sensibility ; 
he is a butt for the jeers and jokes of his companions, 
but apt to surprise and confound them by sudden and 
witty repartees; he is dull and stupid at his tasks, 
yet an eager and intelligent devourer of the travelling 

Or tears, 
A powerful yet gentle master ; 
In genius, sublime, vivid, versatile, 
In style, elevated, clear, elegant — 
The love of companions, 
The fidelity of friends, 
And the veneration of readers, 
Have by this monument honored the memory. 
He was born in Ireland, 
At a place called Pallas, 
[In the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford, 
On the 29th Nov., 1731. 
Educated at [the University of] Dublin, 
And died in London, 
4th April, 1774. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 375 

tales and campaigning stories of his half military ped- 
agogue; he may be a dunce, but he is already a 
rhymer ; and his early scintillations of poetry awaken 
the expectations of his friends. He seems from in- 
fancy to have been compounded of two natures, one 
bright, the other blundering: or to have had fairy 
gifts laid in his cradle by the "good people" who 
haunted his birthplace, the old goblin mansion on 
the banks of the Inny. 

He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we 
may so term it, throughout his career. His fairy 
gifts are of no avail at school, academy, or college : 
they unfit him for close study and practical science, 
and render him heedless of everything that does not 
address itself to his poetical imagination and genial 
and festive feelings; they dispose him to break away 
from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, 
and haunted streams, to revel with jovial companions, 
or to rove the country like a gypsy in quest of odd 
adventures. 

As if confiding in these delusive gifts, he takes no 
heed of the present nor care for the future, lays no 
regular and solid foundation of knowledge, follows 
out no plan, adopts and discards those recommended 
by his friends, at one time prepares for the ministry, 
next turns to the law, and then fixes upon medicine. 
He repairs to Edinburgh, the great emporium of 
medical science, but the fairy gifts accompany him ; 
he idles and frolics away his time there, imbibing 
only such knowledge as is agreeable to him; makes 
an excursion to the poetical regions of the Highlands ; 
and having walked the hospitals for the customary 
time, sets off to ramble over the Continent, in quest 
of novelty rather than knowledge. His whole tour is 



376 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

a poetical one. He fancies he is playing the philoso- 
pher while he is really playing the poet; and though 
professedly he attends lectures and visits foreign uni- 
versities, so deficient is he on his return, in the studies 
for which he set out, that he fails in an examination 
as a surgeon's mate; and while figuring as a doctor 
of medicine, is outvied on a point of practice by his 
apothecary. Baffled in every regular pursuit, after 
trying in vain some of the humbler callings of com- 
monplace life, he is driven almost by chance to the 
exercise of his pen, and here the fairy gifts come to 
his assistance. For a long time, however, he seems 
unaware of the magic properties of that pen : he uses 
it only as a makeshift until he can find a legitimate 
means of support. He is not a learned man, and can 
write but meagrely and at second hand on learned 
subjects; but he has a quick convertible talent that 
seizes lightly on the points of knowledge necessary to 
the illustration of a theme : his writings for a time are 
desultory, the fruits of what he has seen and felt, or 
what he has recently and hastily read ; but his gifted 
pen transmutes everything into gold, and his own 
genial nature reflects its sunshine through his pages. 

Still unaware of his powers, he throws off his writ- 
ings anonymously, to go with the writings of less 
favored men ; and it is a long time, and after a bit- 
ter struggle with poverty and humiliation, before he 
acquires confidence in his literary talent as a means 
of support, and begins to dream of reputation. 

From this time his pen is a wand of power in his 
hand, and he has only to use it discreetly, to make it 
competent to all his wants. But discretion is not a 
part of Goldsmith's nature ; and it seems the property 
of these fairy gifts to be accompanied by moods and 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 377 

temperaments to render their effect precarious. The 
heedlessness of his early days; his disposition for so- 
cial enjoyment: his habit of throwing the present on 
the neck of the future, still continue. His expenses 
forerun his means; he incurs debts on the faith of 
what his magic pen is to produce, and then, under 
the pressure of his debts, sacrifices its productions for 
prices far below their value. It is a redeeming cir- 
cumstance in his prodigality that it is lavished oftener 
upon others than upon himself. — he gives without 
thought or stint, and is the continual dupe of his be- 
nevolence and his trustfulness in human nature. "We 
may say of him as he says of one of his heroes. — 

"He could not stifle the natural impulse which he 
had to do good, but frequently borrowed money to 
relieve the distressed; and when he knew not con- 
veniently where to borrow, he has been observed to 
shed tears as he passed through the wretched sup- 
pliants who attended his gate. . . . 

"His simplicity in trusting persons whom he had 
no previous reasons to place confidence in. seems to 
be one of those lights of his character which, while 
they impeach his understanding, do honor to his bene- 
volence. The low and the timid are ever suspicious; 
but a heart impressed with honorable sentiments ex- 
- from others sympathetic sincerity." 1 

His heedlessness in pecuniary matters, which had 
rendered his life a struggle with poverty even in the 
days of his obscurity, rendered the struggle still more 
intense when his fairy gifts had elevated him into the 
society of the wealthy and luxurious, and imposed on 
his simple and generous spirit fancied obligations to 
a more ample and bounteous display. 
1 Goldsmith's ash. 



378 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"How comes it," says a recent and ingenious critic, 
"that in all the miry paths of life which he had trod, 
no speck ever sullied the robe of his modest and grace- 
ful Muse ? How amidst all the love of inferior com- 
pany, which never to the last forsook him, did he keep 
his genius so free from every touch of vulgarity?" 

We answer that it was owing to the innate purity 
and goodness of his nature; there was nothing in it 
that assimilated to vice and vulgarity. Though his 
circumstances often compelled him to associate with 
the poor, they never could betray him into compan- 
ionship with the depraved. His relish for humor and 
for the study of character, as we have before observed, 
brought him often into convivial company of a vulgar 
kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity 
and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from 
the whole those familiar pictures of life which form 
the staple of his most popular writings. 

Much, too, of this intact purity of heart may be 
ascribed to the lessons of his infancy under the pa- 
ternal roof, — to the gentle, benevolent, elevated, un- 
worldly maxims of his father, who "passing rich with 
forty pounds a year," infused a spirit into his child 
which riches could not deprave nor poverty degrade. 
Much of his boyhood, too, had been passed in the 
household of his uncle, the amiable and generous 
Contarine; where he talked of literature with the 
good pastor, and practised music with his daughter, 
and delighted them both by his juvenile attempts at 
poetry. These early associations breathed a grace 
and refinement into his mind and tuned it up, after 
the rough sports on the green or the frolics at the tav- 
ern. These led him to turn from the roaring glees of 
the club, to listen to the harp of his cousin Jane ; and 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 379 

from the rustic triumph of "throwing sledge," to a 
stroll with his flute along the pastoral banks of the 
Inny. 

The gentle spirit of his father walked with him 
through life, a pure and virtuous monitor ; and in all 
the vicissitudes of his career we find him ever more 
chastened in mind by the sweet and holy recollections 
of the home of his infancy. 

It has been questioned whether he really had any 
religious feeling. Those who raise the question have 
never considered well his writings; his "Vicar of 
Wakefield " and his pictures of the Village Pastor 
present religion under its most endearing forms, and 
with a feeling that could only flow from the deep 
convictions of the heart. When his fair travelling 
companions at Paris urged him to lead the church 
service on a Sunday, he replied that "he was not 
worthy to do it." He had seen in early life the sacred 
offices performed by his father and his brother with 
a solemnity which had sanctified them in his memory ; 
how could he presume to undertake such functions? 
His religion has been called in question by Johnson 
and by Boswell: he certainly had not the gloomy, 
hypochondriacal piety of the one, nor the babbling 
mouth-piety of the other; but the spirit of Christian 
charity, breathed forth in his writings and illustrated 
in his conduct, give us reason to believe he had the 
indwelling religion of the soul. 

We have made sufficient comments in the preceding 
chapters on his conduct in elevated circles of litera- 
ture and fashion. The fairy gifts which took him 
there were not accompanied by the gifts and graces 
necessary to sustain him in that artificial sphere. He 
can neither play the learned sage with Johnson, nor 



380 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

the fine gentleman with Beauclerc; though he has a 
mind replete with wisdom and natural shrewdness, 
and a spirit free from vulgarity. The blunders of a 
fertile but hurried intellect, and the awkward display 
of the student assuming the man of fashion, fix on 
him a character for absurdity and vanity which, like 
the charge of lunacy, it is hard to disprove, however 
weak the grounds of the charge and strong the facts 
in opposition to it. 

In truth, he is never truly in his place in these 
learned and fashionable circles, which talk and live 
for display. It is not the kind of society he craves. 
His heart yearns for domestic life ; it craves familiar, 
confiding intercourse, family firesides, the guileless 
and happy company of children; these bring out the 
heartiest and sweetest sympathies of his nature. 

"Had it been his fate," says the critic we have 
already quoted, "to meet a woman who could have 
loved him despite his faults, and respected him de- 
spite his foibles, we cannot but think that his life and 
his genius would have been much more harmonious; 
his desultory affections would have been concentred, 
his craving self-love appeased, his pursuits more set- 
tled, his character more solid. A nature like Gold- 
smith's, so affectionate, so confiding, so susceptible 
to simple, innocent enjoyments, so dependent on oth- 
ers for the sunshine of existence, does not flower if 
deprived of the atmosphere of home." 

The cravings of his heart in this respect are evi- 
dent, we think, throughout his career ; and if we 
have dwelt with more significancy than others upon 
his intercourse with the beautiful Horneck family, it 
is because we fancied we could detect, amid his play- 
ful attentions to one of its members, a lurking senti- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 381 

ment of tenderness, kept down by conscious poverty 
and a humiliating idea of personal defects. A hope- 
less feeling of this kind — the last a man would com- 
municate to his friends — might account for much of 
that fitfulness of conduct and that gathering melan- 
choly remarked but not comprehended by his asso- 
ciates during the last year or two of his life ; and may 
have been one of the troubles of the mind which ag- 
gravated his last illness, and only terminated with his 
death. 

We shall conclude these desultory remarks with a 
few which have been used by us on a former occasion. 
From the general tone of Goldsmith's biography, it is 
evident that his faults, at the worst, were but nega- 
tive, while his merits were great and decided. He 
was no one's enemy but his own; his errors, in the 
main, inflicted evil on none but himself, and were so 
blended with humorous and even affecting circum- 
stances, as to disarm anger and conciliate kindness. 
Where eminent talent is united to spotless virtue we 
are awed and dazzled into admiration, but our admi- 
ration is apt to be cold and reverential; while there 
is something in the harmless infirmities of a good and 
great, but erring individual, that pleads touchingly 
to our nature ; and we turn more kindly towards the 
object of our idolatry when we find that like our- 
selves, he is mortal and is frail. The epithet so often 
heard, and in such kindly tones, of "poor Gold- 
smith," speaks volumes. Few who consider the real 
compound of admirable and whimsical qualities which 
form his character, would wish to prune away his 
eccentricities, trim its grotesque luxuriance, and clip 
it down to the decent formalities of rigid virtue. 
"Let not his frailties be remembered," said Johnson; 



382 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

"he was a very great man." But for our part, we 
rather say, "Let them be remembered," since their 
tendency is to endear; and we question whether he 
himself would not feel gratified in hearing his reader, 
after dwelling with admiration on the proofs of his 
greatness, close the volume with the kind-hearted 
phrase, so fondly and familiarly ejaculated, of 
"Poor Goldsmith." 



€t)e ftitoer£t&e ^literature Jberieg-^^w 

74. Gray's Elegy, etc. ; Cowper's John Gilpin, etc. 

75. Scudder's George Washington.§ 

76. Wordsworth's On the Intimations of Immortality, and Other Poems. 

77. Burns"s Cotter's Saturday Night, and Other Poems.* 

78. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield.§ 

79. Lamb's Old China, and Other Essays of Elia. 

80. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, etc. ; Campbell's Lochiel's 

Warning, etc.* 

81. Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.§§ 

82. Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales.§§§ 

83. George Eliot's Silas Marner.§ 

84. Dana's Two Years Before the Mast.§§§ 

85. Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days.§§ 

86. Scott's Ivanhoe.§§§ 

87. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. §§§ 

88. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.§§§ 

89. Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to Lilliput.** 

90. Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to Brobdingnag.** 

91. Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables.§§§ 

92. Burroughs's A Bunch of Herbs, and Other Papers. 

93. Shakespeare's As You Like It.*** 

94. Milton's Paradise Lost. Books I.-III ** 
95,96,97,98. Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. In four parts. 

( The four parts also bound in one volume, linen, bo cents) 
99. Tennyson's Coming of Arthur, and Other Idylls of the King. 

100. Burke's Conciliation with the Colonies. Robert Andersen, A. M.* 

101. Homer's Hiad. Books I., VI., XXII., and XXIV. Pope* 
ic2. Macaulay's Essays on Johnson and Goldsmith* 

103. Macaulay's Essay on Milton.*** 

104. Macaulay's Life and Writings of Addison.*** 

Nos. 102, 103, and 104 are edited by William P. Trent. 

105. Carlyle's Essay on Burns. George R. Noyes * 

106. Shakespeare's Macbeth. Richard Grant White, and Helen Gray 

Cone* ** 

107. 108. Grimms' German Household Tales. In two parts. + 
109. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. W. V. Moody.§ 

no. De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe. Milton Haight Turk.* 
in. Tennyson's Princess. Rolfe. {Double Number, 30 cents. Also, in 
Rolfe's Students' 1 Series, cloth, to Teachers, 53 cents.) 

112. Virgil's iEneid. Books I.-III. Translated by Cranch. 

113. Poems from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. George H. 

Browne.** 

114. Old Greek Folk Stories. Josephine Preston Peabody.* 

115. Browning's Pied Piper of Hamelin, and Other Poems. 

116. Shakespeare's Hamlet. RichardGrant White and Helen GrayCone.§ 

117. 118. Stories from the Arabian Nights. In two parts.* 

119. Poe's Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, etc** 

120. Poe's Gold-Bug, The Purloined Letter, and Other Tales.** 

Nos. 119, 120, are edited by William P. Trent. 

121. The Great Debate: Hayne's Speech.** 

122. The Great Debate: Webster's Reply to Hayne.** 

Nos. 121, 122, are edited by Lindsay Swift. 

123. Lowell's Democracy, and Other Papers.** 

124. Aldrich's Baby Bell, The Little Violinist, etc. 

125. Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. Arthur Gilman.* 

126. Ruskin's King of the Golden River: Wonder Stories, by Others* 

127. Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn, The Eve of St. Agnes, etc. 

128. Byron's Prisoner of Chillon, and Other Poems. 

129. Plato's The Judgment of Socrates : being The Apology, Crito, and 

the Closing Scene of Phaedo. Translated by Paul E. More. 

130. Emerson's The Superlative, and Other Essays. 

131. Emerson's Nature, and Compensation. Edited by Edward W. Emerson. 

132. Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum, etc. Louise Imogen Guiney.* 

133. Carl Schurz's Abraham Lincoln.** 

134. Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. Rolfe. {Double Number, 30 cents. 

Also in Rolfe 's Students' Series, cloth, to Teachers, 53 cents.) 

135. 136. Chaucer's Prologue, The Knight's Tale, and The Nun's Priest's 

Tale. [135] Introduction, and The Prologue. [136] The Knight's Tale, 
and The Nun's Priest's Tale. Frank J. Mather, Jr.** 
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